Chapter Text
The first thing Sam is aware of is that his bed smells... weird.
Not like Dean, not like Dad, and definitely, most worryingly, not like him.
The second thing is that he can’t move his legs.
He kicks under the covers and realises he’s trapped in pants that are stupidly long. His t-shirt is like a dress on him and he thrashes for a moment, getting his legs free.
Then he lies very still and opens his eyes very wide in the dark motel room.
It’s a standard set-up as far as Sam can tell; nondescript landscape on the wall; radio alarm clock on the side; burger wrappers next to the too-small trash can; a can of beer on the table. The bedding is green and slippery, the window out to the parking lot smudged with dust, blurring the neon signs outside.
It’s like any other motel room on the edge of any other town he’s spent his whole life in.
It’s also not the one he fell asleep in.
Sam crawls out of bed and drops into a crouch on the floor. He’s glad to have kicked out of the too-long pants, but badly wishes he had some underwear. He doesn’t think waking up in a strange motel room half-naked is a good sign.
And that’s when Sam registers the heavy breathing.
There’s someone in the room with him.
Sam’s whole body goes cold and he stays extra still.
Okay , okay , be cool , he thinks as his heartbeat starts to thunder in his ears. This isn’t their motel room. He hasn’t got his stuff. He’s wearing weird clothes. So, what? Kidnapped? Dad would kill him if he’d been kidnapped - Dean would, well, Sam has a pretty good idea what Dean would -
He’d been with Dean when he’d fallen asleep (where else would he be?) Dean listening to his walkman in the next bed, humming off-key, the faint opening strums of ‘Rebel Rebel’ through the tinny headphones Sam’s lullaby (Dean never got to listen to Bowie with Dad around more of that queer Europop trash Dean? Thought I’d raised boys with better taste and Dean flushed and shoved the cassettes to the very bottom of his duffle).
Where the hell is Dean.
There’s a handgun on the bedside table next to him, and it’s heavy when Sam picks it up. Loaded then. He slowly stands next to the bed and peers over the sheets.
The man is sleeping on his front in the next bed, still out for the count. If this is a kidnapping it’s a pretty crappy one.
He tiptoes carefully across the room, scanning for a bag, for more weapons, for his clothes . Why have his clothes changed? Who changed them?
Sam feels a bit sick thinking about, and decides worrying about clothes should probably be at the bottom of his list of concerns. He needs to get to a phone. He needs to get out of this weird weird room with this strange sleeping man and call Dad.
Except the man is sleeping in the bed closest to the door.
Sam weighs up his options for a moment and then heads to the bathroom, sticks his head through the door. There’s a window above the bath, but it’s small. Probably just big enough for him to crawl through, if he can find a way to get up to it. Maybe if he climbed up on the sink he could -
“Sam?”
Sam freezes.
The voice is sleep-rough and not fully awake. But the man knows his name.
Sam turns and sees the man half-sitting up in bed. The man sees the gun in Sam’s hand and stops, resting on his elbows.
“Huh,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face, yawning and not looking nearly worried enough that Sam has a loaded weapon. “Weird dream,” he mutters.
Well.
This isn’t how Sam planned his escape. But he was a Winchester, he could improvise.
He levels the gun at the man.
“Where’s my brother,” he says, trying to put as much force into it as he can.
The man stares at him. He looks confused and then - then he does something very strange.
He looks over at the faintly glowing alarm clock, frowns at the empty bed Sam woke up in and then pinches the underside of his own arm. Hard.
When he turns back to Sam his eyes are very wide, and Sam thinks it’s pretty unfair for this guy to be more freaked out than him considering the circumstances.
“ Sammy ?” he says again, almost disbelieving, and the nickname bristles, makes Sam tighten his grip on the gun.
“What have you done with my brother?”
“What?”
“My brother. Where is he? He - he was with me when I went to sleep. What have you done with him?” Sam can feel the panic starting to claw up his throat, thinking about what might have happened to Dean, making his hands sweat - “And where are we? Where have you brought me?”
“ Sam ?” the man says again and man, it’s like a broken record, “Sam what the fuck, ” and this is a waste of time, they’ve already established the man knows Sam’s name. Sam glances at the door, wonders if he can make a run for it. The man looks like he would probably get there before him.
The man mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like ‘ you’ve got to be fucking kidding me .’
Sam holds the gun steady.
“I’m not gonna ask again,” his voice cracks a little this time- he doesn’t sound at all like they do in the movies and it disappoints him a bit - “my Dad and my brother will already be out looking for me but if you don’t start talking right now I’ll - I’ll - “
If he’s honest, he isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do. Sam has only shot at bottles before now, Dean’s hand on his elbow, familiar freckled face splitting into a huge grin when Sam knocked them all down, one after the other.
He doesn’t know how to go about shooting actual people.
If an actual person this is.
“Christo,” he says next, and for some reason that startles a laugh out of the man.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” he says, and Sam glares at him. He gets the feeling he’s not being taken very seriously.
He clicks the safety off the gun and the man starts then, holds his hands up and wide.
“Woah, woah , Sammy, kiddo, let’s not get hasty.”
“How do you know my name?” Sam can feel his voice is getting high and angsty. This isn’t the cool collected Winchester-under-pressure he promised Dad he could be when he argued that he should be allowed on hunts.
(Could this whole thing be a test of Dad’s? And if so, where was Dean? Was he old enough to do these tests on his own now? He spends a lot of time telling Dad and Dean he’s ready, c’mon guys, I’m not a little kid anymore , but right about now he doesn’t feel old enough at all, he feels small and scared and even though he knows it’s selfish he really, really wishes Dean could’ve been kidnapped with him-)
“What did you do with Dean? And where are my pants?” He says, because really, it’s drafty, and he feels exposed.
The man has inched up and out of the bed, and is taking a slow step towards him with his hands still up, like Sam is some kind of nervous dog.
He’s tall, maybe even as tall and Dad, and broad across the shoulders. He could definitely take Sam in a fight, no question.
“Sammy? Hey, Sam, please put the gun down.”
‘Sammy .’ The man says it strangely, the same inflection as Dean somehow, but also nothing like him, because his voice is all wrong and low and scratchy.
Sam really wishes he’d stop shaking. This isn’t how Dean said it’d be. He didn’t think he’d ever have to talk to the bad guy. He thought he’d just need to shoot them. But this man looked like… well, a man. Okay yeah, so he probably wasn’t a civilian, held himself with that kind of tense wariness that made Sam think of Dad and other hunters they met up with sometimes, but he didn’t look like a wendigo or a striga and he wasn’t currently trying to hurt Sam or eat him so, maybe -
Or maybe he was the other kind of bad guy. The ones at truck stops and sat on the benches outside gas stations in the middle of nowhere with gnarled faces and cracked lips and wandering, x-ray eyes that stared too much at his knees in shorts and his neck and made his skin crawl and Dean shove Sam behind him and out of sight as he scowled at them and muttered ‘sick fucks’ under his breath.
Sam thinks he’d rather this man be a shifter than one of those guys.
“Have you kidnapped me? Where’s my brother?”
The man has still got his hands up, palms wide. He’s in his pyjamas as well, so it seems unlikely he’s hiding a weapon anywhere else.
Sam didn’t ever think he’d be holding a gun on someone in their pyjamas.
“Sammy,” says the man again, gently (and Sam really wishes he’d stop calling him that), “I know this is gonna sound weird as all hell, but it’s me. It’s Dean. I promise. You got, you got de-aged, I think, somehow, or time-hopped? I don’t know, but we smoked a witch the other day and she must’ve -”
“If you’re Dean why do you look like that? You’re 14.”
“Am I?” the man looks surprised, “okay, uh, good to know, so that puts you at 9 or 10, right? You’re 9?”
Sam bites his lip and nods.
“Fuck. Sammy, you poor kid.”
“I’m not poor anything,” says Sam firmly, glaring at him and waving the gun a little, “and don’t call me that.” The man flinches.
But then a truck rumbles by on the road and the headlights flash across the room, Sam in his t-shirt dress, back to the wall holding the gun, the man standing by the bed, hands wide.
And there is something about the man’s face. He… he looks sort of familiar.
But de-ageing ? Sam’s never heard of anything like it. It’s too weird. Too ‘Back to the Future’ flying cars weird. Even for them.
“If you’re Dean,” Sam says again, slowly, the beginnings of a plan forming, “then have you got the Impala?”
Relief breaks out over the man’s face. “ Yes , yeah, Christ, good idea, we do. C’mon,” and he’s moving towards the door, keeping an eye all the time on Sam, on the gun.
“Look, she’s just here,” and he opens the door, holding it out for Sam.
Sam can’t quite believe it was that easy.
He approaches carefully, keeping the gun in front of him.
“Go out,” he says, “I want to see properly.”
And the man looks at him for a beat like he’s thinking about it, but then backs out into the covered walkway, bare feet on the cement.
Sam follows, edges his way out until he’s on the walkway too, cold leaching into his feet. There’s a glint of familiar black metal out in the lot below.
The man is talking, his voice still that strangely familiar gentle, “I know this must be so messed up for you Sammy, but I swear it’s me, and look, she’s right - “
And right about then Sam makes a run for it.
He hears the man swear loudly and start after him but Sam doesn’t train two years above his age group with the middle school track team for nothing.
Dean can fight and Dad can hunt but Sam, Sam was born to run.
The man is shouting after him and seriously, again, this must be the worst kidnapping he’s ever heard of, does this guy not care people will hear him? But Sam’s ignoring him, busy vaulting the last few steps of the stairwell and pelting across the lot, the stones tearing at his feet.
He can see the motel office on the far side, see a light on, see the clerk lazing on her elbows in front of a monitor and all he needs is to get there, get her to keep the man away from him, get to a phone, get to a way to call Dean and pray to god he’s there, that he’s not too mad at Sam for getting nabbed in the middle of the night to come pick him up -
And then Sam is on the ground.
His face hits the floor so hard he sees spots, feels his chin split on the asphalt, and then he’s on his back -
“ Sam , what the fuck are you thinking? You can’t just tear off like - oh crap, shit, Sammy I’m sorry -“
He knees the man hard in the groin (like Dad taught him), squirms like an eel (like Dean told him to) and scratches the hands that are holding him down - but it’s a short-lived fight.
The man looms over him, sitting on his knees and effectively pinning Sam to the ground, and his expression is frustration and desperation and a whole lot of fear. He’s got both of Sam’s wrists in one hand, so tight Sam can feel his wrist bones grinding together and with his free hand the man reaches up and -
Sam flinches, ducking his face to the side and bracing.
The man goes very, very still.
“Sammy.”
It sounds so stricken, so hollow and so not what Sam expected, that he dares a glance up.
Out here in the light of the street lamps, the neon glow of the vacancy sign, the light of the motel office, Sam can see the man better. The shape of his face. His nose. The mussed-up sleep hair -
He has scars Sam doesn’t recognise and stubble on his chin but his eyes; his eyes are a very familiar shade of green.
And then Sam zeroes in on something caught in the man’s t-shirt.
“Where did you get that?” he manages, wheezing a little because this dude is heavy .
The man looks confused for a second, the expression so intensely like Dean it’s uncanny, and then he clocks where Sam’s looking.
“Oh. You gave it to me kid.”
The man who says he’s Dean uses the hand not pinning Sam’s wrists together to pull the amulet free.
“It woulda been last Christmas for you. We were in Nebraska.”
Sam eyes it intently.
It’s the same one. A little battered - the back smoothed over as though it had spent years resting on shirts - but one of the horns is crooked in the same way it was on the day Sam gave it to his brother. It couldn’t be a copy.
“You were going to give it to Dad,” says the man who might be Dean, “but you found out he’d been lying to you. About hunting. So you gave it to me instead. And I’ve had it ever since.”
Sam breathes hard. The man who has to be Dean (can’t be, but maybe has to be , because no-one else could know that stuff, no-one else could have the car, the amulet, the memories, the eyes), must feel him go limp because he eases off Sam’s wrists.
Sam feels the blood rush back into his fingers.
“Okay,” he says, finally.
Adult Dean is watching him closely. “You sure about that? You not gonna try and take off again?”
“I mean,” says Sam, “you could’ve stolen it. And the Impala. And like, sucked Dean’s memories out of him. So I’m still not going to trust you, but I want you to get off of me, so. Okay.”
That startles a laugh out of Dean, and the recognition of it trips down Sam’s spine like electricity. It’s hoarser, lower, but exactly the same.
He stares up again at the face, half-shadowed in the strange neon light. It is beyond weird, beyond messed up, but he does look like Dean, 15 years older or so.
“I really did raise a paranoid kid huh?” says Dean then, sounding suddenly serious. Sam’s not sure if it’s a question directed at him, but then Dean lets go of Sam completely and stands, pulling Sam to his feet by his elbow.
“Keep the gun if it makes you feel better, just, let’s get back into the room. We need to clean that up.” He gestures to where Sam can feel the blood and grit congealing on his bottom lip.
“And then,” Dean mutters, turning to head back up the stairs and half-talking to himself, “then we need to figure out what the fuck we’re gonna do next.”
Back in the room Dean digs out a pair of shorts with a drawstring and a vest that’s not quite as huge as the one Sam’s drowning in, and Sam shuts himself in the bathroom to change, gun on the countertop. He’s pretty sure now, pretty fairly sure, that this is all happening as the man - Dean - says it is. That he’s going to have to trust him. But there’s also a warning voice in the back of his head (a voice that sounds a lot like Dad when he’s in a mood) that’s telling him he’d be an idiot to let his guard down now.
There’s a rap at the door, and Sam opens it.
Dean’s changed too, jeans and a black shirt, and Sam feels better that at least they’re both out of pjs now. He’s carrying a first aid bag Sam knows only too well.
He stares, and Dean notices.
“Yeah, well, if it ain’t broke,” Dean’s smiling hesitantly, and Sam doesn’t return it.
Dean sighs. “C’mon, hop up. I need to dig the stones out of your face.”
Sam huffs and climbs onto the counter, pulls the gun into his lap pointedly as he gets settled, can feel Dean’s eyes on it as he does so.
“If you’re Dean,” says Sam, hesitantly, skeptically, “then prove it.”
Dean is fiddling with antiseptic wipes but nods, smiles a little like Sam is doing something that he expected, and then looks full at Sam.
In the harsh glare of the bathroom lights the resemblance (the ageing ) is even more surreal.
“You’re Sam Winchester, son of Mary and John, and your birthday is May 2nd ‘83. Your Mom was killed when you were a baby by a yellow-eyed demon. You live on the road with your Dad and brother and get to tag along on monster hunts and drive in a sweet, sweet 67’ Chevy Impala. You uh - you broke your arm when you were 5 jumping off the goddamn roof after me and I took you to the ER on my handlebars. Your favourite cereal is fruit loops but not the green ones because you’re a weird kid,” Dean’s soaking a gauze in iodine, and Sam is really not looking forward to it making contact with his face.
“You’re uh, re-reading the Hobbit at the moment I think? For like the 20th time? And you’re so smart in school, you come top in every class and you got beat up by this kid Billy for it like, uh, three months ago? And I put the fear of God into him, so, you know,” Dean is smiling crookedly, like this is a fun memory. It wasn't fun for Sam - he still has the scar on his knee from Billy.
“You’re not coming on hunts yet with us but you bang on about it all the damn time. And uh - what town are we in? In your time?”
That makes Sam start. “What?”
“Where are we? On the road. Where did you fall asleep.”
“Oh. Um, Colorado. Grand Junction.”
“Grand Junction,” Dean repeats, and he sounds pleased, “okay, great, so uh, Christ, it’s been a while - Dad’s hunting a rogue werewolf and we’re camped out just by the freeway in a motel with a pool? The pool is a big plus because the mattresses are basically springs and sheets, Dad thought he had it rough, we were being stabbed in the gut every night - and, and - oh, yeah! Yeah there’s this ice cream parlour that we love there and I take your whiney bitch ass basically every weekend because you’re addicted to the peanut butter sundaes and you’re also a little sweet on the girl behind the counter. She’s got all this dark hair and killer tits and gives you extra sprinkles - “
“Okay! Okay,” Sam can feel his face heating. The motel does have a pool. Sam has a crick in his neck from how uncomfortable the mattress is, and they’ve only been to the ice cream parlour once but the girl definitely gave him extra sprinkles and this is embarrassing and freaky weird -
“What’s her name Sam? Cherry?” Dean is grinning at him, teasing, and it’s still so weird, still so huge to even get his head around, but it’s Dean’s. Dean’s 14 year old devil-may-care smile that got him free milkshakes from waitresses and cuffs on the back of the head from Dad. Dean’s smile on an adult who looked like he could be Dean. In 15 years time.
“Cheryl,” he says quietly, and Dean crows in a way that couldn’t be anyone else.
“ Knew it. Good taste Sam, she was cute.”
Sam stares at his brother and feels like the whole world is shifting under him.
Dean’s just standing in front of him, holding the iodine and the gauze and a pair of tweezers.
“Hey. This’ll sting, you know that right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d feel a helluva lot better if you didn’t have a loaded weapon aimed at my dick when I do it.”
There’s a heavy silence then. A leaky tap drips in the bath, Dean stays very still and Sam decides he has to trust him.
He hands Dean the gun.
Dean takes it from him slowly, carefully, but then clicks the safety on one-handed and throws it out of the bathroom in one quick movement. Sam hears it hit the bed and bounce to the floor. Dean breathes out hard, turns back to Sam.
“Okay, sting time.”
He’s not lying. It does sting, and Sam screws his eyes shut tight to keep the tears back because Dean or not, he’s not crying over a cut.
This Dean is much better at first aid than 14 year old Dean is. The hands are a lot bigger but much gentler too. He mutters apologies when Sam hisses and when the gravel is out and the blood is gone and the cut cleaned with bottled water and a bandaid stuck on he says, “eh, you’ll live” in a quiet, strange voice.
Then, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to down you like that kid, but man, I forgot how you can run.”
He sounds a bit like Dad, Sam realises. Dad when he was in a good mood and had only had a couple of beers and was reading Sam Lord of the Rings (picking up random chapters wherever Dean was up to, and he didn’t do the voices like Dean but he sat on Sam’s bed and scruffed up Sam’s hair when he said goodnight and it was nice - )
He steps back, and Sam hops off the counter, spins on his heels to inspect his face. He’s only just tall enough to see his reflection in the bottom of the mirror but it looks about as he expects it to look - his fringe is too long, it’s getting annoying, and he’s still got a lot of freckles from where he got sunburnt playing out in the pool all afternoon a few days back and Dean told him off for being an idiot how did ya forget to put sunscreen on your face Sam, didn’t I tell you? I talking to myself? That’s the most obvious thing you numbskull - except he now has a big white bandaid across his chin. It looks pretty dorky.
He meets Dean’s eyes in the mirror.
“So it’s not 1993 anymore?”
Dean snorts. “Nah, we’re well into the millenia now. It’s 2008.”
Sam feels that jolt through him, his stomach dropping into his toes. 2008. It sounds made-up.
George Bush wouldn’t be President anymore. Sam doesn’t especially care about Bush, but for some reason the idea makes him feel dizzy, makes the air harder to breath for a second. They’ve gone past 2000. Sam is supposed to be old .
Dean turns out of the bathroom, goes to sit back on his bed.
“I can put on the TV if you want,” he offers, “show you a paper with the date - we’ve got a couple.”
“No,” and Sam hopes Dean can’t hear the shake he can feel in his voice, he doesn’t know why this is freaking him out more than adjusting to Dean being 40 or however old he is, “no, it’s okay, I believe you.”
Sam fiddles with his hands, unsure what to do with them now he doesn’t have a gun to hold. Even though he’s decided to trust this Dean, he still kinda wishes he had it.
“So I’m supposed to be 24 here?”
“Yeah Sam, you’re 24. And I’m 29. Fuck this is so weird.” Dean mutters, and then, under his breath, “and I need to stop fucking swearing because you’re a child .”
Sam pauses in the doorway of the bathroom, watches as Dean drops his face into his hands for a second, scrub the back of his head hard. He seems to take a moment, and then is on his feet.
“Right,” he says, apparently to himself, “Bobby,” which, hey, Sam knows a Bobby, and then he’s moving around the room, collecting stuff up.
Sam decides this means he can poke around the bedside table that he assumes is older-his. It has a very dusty book by the lamp, and a switch blade which is pretty cool, all silver and engraved handle. It looks kinda how Sam imagines Bilbo’s Sting.
He eyes the knife, and then glances over at Dean. He has a feeling this adult-version of Dean will only confiscate it if he tries to reach it now, judging by how he’d reacted to Sam having the gun.
He continues his search of the side-table. Mostly it seems to be books. Older-him hadn’t unpacked much.
“How long have you been here?”
“What?”
“How long have you been here. You and older-me. In this motel.”
“Oh. Just last night.”
“Do we have a house?”
Dean stops packing his bag and doesn’t say anything.
“Did we never get a house?” Sam tries again.
“Sam,” Dean turns around and his face is pale, “Sammy, I’m sorry but -”
“It’s okay,” Sam says, deciding to risk it and pick up the knife anyway, the handle is really cool. “I didn’t expect we did,” and it’s the truth. A bit disappointing, but still. Dad always said houses were for civilians.
Sam often thinks being a civilian might not be so bad, one day.
“I’m guessing we also didn’t get a dog?”
Dean scoffs. “Uh - no. I mean, you had one for a little while, when you were a bit older, but no, we don’t have a dog -”
“When I get older again remind Older-me to get a dog.” Sam says vehemently.
“Our life doesn’t really suit a dog Sam.”
Sam knows this argument well. He currently has it with Dad at least once a week.
“We can train him to hunt! And bark if there’s intruders and go for the shifters and skinwalkers knees so you can take ‘em out! And I’ll take him for walks and I can even take him to school if we put a harness on him like Mandy Brewer has for her seeing dog and -”
Dean is staring at him with a very strange expression on his face.
“What?” says Sam, warily.
“You’re just. You’re exactly how I remember. I’d forgotten, but,” he scrubs a hand over his face, “yeah. You’re exactly him.”
“Of course I’m him,” Sam mutters, “it’s you who's all gross and ancient.”
“Hey. Respect your elders.” But he’s smiling a little, and doesn’t say it with the ‘shut your mouth boy’ warning that Dad does when Sam’s getting ‘too smart’.
That reminds Sam. “Where’s Dad?”
Dean’s smile falls.
“Sam. Fuck.”
Sam doesn’t move. He doesn’t know how, but he knows.
“He’s dead isn’t he? When I’m 26 Dad is dead then.”
Dean stares at him. His eyes are too bright.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, he passed Sam.”
Sam doesn’t know exactly how old Dad is, but he knows enough that he wouldn’t have been very old when Sam is 26.
“Was it a hunt gone wrong?”
“Sam, I, I’m sorry. I know it’s all a lot to take in - “
“No, it’s ok. Anyway, maybe, when I go back to my time, it won’t turn out the same way as it does here. Maybe we’ll get a dog. And a house. And Dad will still be alive.”
Dean looks oddly desperate.
“I’m not sure that’s how this works Sam - “
“You’re not sure what this is at all,” Sam reminds him, hopping up onto the bed. “You said it was a witch though?”
“Uh, yeah,” Dean’s frowning as he crams a stack of papers into a backpack, “two days ago. She was fucki- uh, messing with some a rival Church congregation. Proper suburban melodrama, but she was the real deal. Could’ve been working much tougher gigs than jinxing marrow growing competitions or what the f- or whatever.”
“You can swear you know,” Sam says, grinning a little. “You do when you’re 14. When Dad’s not around.”
Dean raises an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, and look what a terrible influence I was on you.”
“You’re not so bad.”
Dean rolls his eyes, slings his duffle onto the sideboard and starts packing older-Sam’s instead.
“Either way, you sent her altar up in smoke and she didn’t thank you for it. She’s the only thing I can think of that might’ve been powerful enough to do - “ he gestures at Sam, sat cross-legged in his shorts and vest on the bed.
“This,” he finishes, lamely.
“So what do you think we should do now? Go and ask her to un-do it and send me back?”
Dean chews his lip, “something like that. But first we’re going to Bobby’s.”
Oh. The Uncle Bobby Sam knows is probably the one Dean knows too. Not that Sam’s seen Bobby since he was like 5.
He waits until Dean heads into the bathroom to clear out the last of their stuff up before climbing off the bed and slipping the switchblade into the back of his shorts. Just to be on the safe side.
He’s just considering what he’s going to do about shoes (older him’s boots are like boats ) when Dean emerges from the bathroom.
“Alright, look alive Sam - ” Dean says and suddenly there’s a duffle flying at him.
It’s not much bigger than Dean’s but it weighs a ton and slams into Sam square in the stomach. He hits the ground with an ‘oof’.
Dean is instantly next to him, the duffle pulled off him with one hand, his eyes wide.
“Oh crap, Sammy, fuck, I’m sorry, I forgot - you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Sam doesn’t look at Dean, feeling weirdly embarrassed and grabs the duffle, tests the weight. It’s so heavy he can barely lift it. It’s full of… books? Older him must be pretty strong.
“Sorry kid, grown-up you is pretty big these days and I -”
“I’m big?” Sam interrupts quickly, “did I get tall?” He’d guessed as much from the boat-boots, but still.
Dean pulls him to his feet and laughs, a low sound.
“Uh, yeah man, you got tall.” There’s a hesitancy in the way he says it, and he’s not looking at Sam.
Sam grins. Adult-Dean may be tall and broad across the shoulders and have strange scars on large hands, but Sam can still read his tells like a book.
“Taller than you?” he says, sly.
Dean rolls his eyes. “God you’re such a punk, yes, taller than me, okay? Happy now?’
“Very,” says Sam, and he pulls the duffle out of Dean’s hand even though it is really heavy and hoists it over his shoulder.
Sam feels more confident in the Impala, more at home, because well, he guesses he kind of is. The leather seats are a little more worn but it smells exactly the same and his initials are in the door, lego peaking through the grate.
He clambers into shotgun and folds his legs up on the seat.
Dean slides in and then stops, frowning at Sam.
“What?”
“Maybe you should ride in the back.”
“ What ?”
“You’re like, 4 foot Sam. And there’s still no seatbelts.”
Sam bristles, indignant, “yeah but I’m not actually 4 Dean! Dad lets me ride in the front all the time, only reason I don’t more often is you beat me to it everytime!”
Dean’s mouth moves in a weird way like he’s trying not the smile, and then he’s waving Sam quiet, keys in the ignition, “okay, okay, take a swan dive through the windscreen for all I care,” but he sounds amused and Sam figures this means he has a free pass to pick the music.
It would be typical that Dean has a whole extra two decades of music to choose from and yet his tape collection remains the exact same as the one Sam reorganised last week. The labels are peeling, plastic cracked a little more battered, but other than that it’s identical.
He flicks through them until he finds the Bowie and slots it in.
He finds he’s watching Dean closely out of the corner of his eye.
Dean starts a bit at the opening of Space Oddity, frowns at the stereo, glances over at Sam.
“Bowie?”
“You were uh, listening to it. In my time.”
Dean huffs a laugh. “Man, it’s been years .”
They pull out of the motel lot and onto the highway. It’s pushing 5am now and the horizon is slowly getting lighter, the stars winking out one by one.
Sam swallows a yawn because he doesn’t want to sleep, he wants to know.
“So Uncle Bobby? What is he going to do?”
“He’s going to help us out, hopefully. If this thing is what I think it is - you remember Bobby right? It’s probably been a while since you saw him - last time was, what, when Dad got clawed up and we stayed over at Bobby’s for Christmas? You were pretty little. Anyway, he’s got loads of books, right up your geeky street.”
Sam ignores this dig pointedly. “Where does he live?”
“South Dakota.”
“And where are we now?”
“Just outside of Wichita.”
“So how long a drive is it gonna be?”
“Lot of questions Sammy.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s okay kid. It’ll be 6-7 hours. You can go back to sleep if you want.”
“I’m not tired,” Sam says, stifling another yawn. He tries to turn it into a cough but doesn’t think he does a very convincing job of it, judging by the way Dean smiles at the road.
“Sure you’re not,” Dean says, voice soft, but he turns down the music anyway, and before Sam knows it he’s being lulled to sleep by Rebel Rebel again.
When he wakes up it’s light out, and he’s under Dad’s jacket. For a second, he forgets where he is, why he’s in the Impala, and then he registers the leg his head is pillowed on, jeans he doesn’t recognise and a strangely familiar low voice humming very quietly off-key above him.
He jumps to sitting, everything coming back very quickly.
“Hey, hey - you okay?” says a very much adult Dean and Sam nods, biting his tongue. He’d sort of hoped maybe this whole thing had been another one of his weird, vivid dreams. But this felt real enough alright.
“Well, that was good timing, because I was gonna stop for breakfast, I could eat a horse . How ‘bout it Sammy? Short stack?”
They pull into a roadside diner and the waitress is a kindly middle-aged lady who blushes a bit when Dean smiles at her, which is a familiar enough Dean move that Sam rolls his eyes, and then she turns to him and says “and what can I get your son?”
Dean’s halfway through a glass of water that he promptly snorts out of his nose.
Sam passes him a tissue, “just the pancakes please.”
“Man,” Dean mutters when she’s walked away, “do I really look old enough to be Dad?”
Sam shrugs, “do to me.”
Dean whacks him with the menu, “What the hell kid, I’m in the prime of my youth.”
“You’ve definitely got grey hair, so I guess it depends on what you mean by prime.”
“ What? ”
“Grey hair, right here,” says Sam, tugging at his fringe, and grins when Dean goes cross-eyed in his panic, trying to inspect his own.
Dean sees his face, sees he’s been got. Narrows his eyes.
“Funny Sam.”
“Yeah, I’m hilarious.”
Dean snorts and then the waitress is back with Dean’s coffee and Sam’s milkshake.
Sam brings his feet up on the diner bench and tucks them under him. He feels kinda self-conscious being out in public in just socks, but it’s a better alternative than the boat shoes.
Dean’s watching him with a strange expression, an almost a smile. He keeps doing that.
“Something on my face?”
“It’s been so long since I knew you like this,” Dean says, and then he’s leaning forward all of a sudden, all animated, “what do you like doing Sam? What fun stuff have we been up to recently?”
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon dude, humour me, I can’t remember all the crap you were into aged 9, fill me in.”
“Oh,” Sam feels suddenly self-conscious, and he ducks his head a bit, swirls marshmallows in the milkshake, “uh - well, we’re reading Lord of the Rings.”
‘“ I am the real Strider, I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will , goddamnit’”, Dean says, promptly, word-perfect, and man, he’s a whole lot better at Aargon’s voice as an adult than he is at 14.
“That was actually pretty good,” Sam says and Dean preens.
“‘Course it is, I’m a pro, and Aargorn had the best lines. But nah, I didn’t mean books and dumb stuff you do with me - there must be something cool we’ve done recently. Has Dad taken us on any detours? Have you been anywhere with school? Who are your little friends at the moment?”
“I don’t have any friends,” Sam says, and then when Dean’s face falls realises that sounds pretty tragic and backpedals, “well, I mean uh, there was Cindy? In the motel room two doors down in Reno? She had a baseball kit, so we messed around with that.”
Dean’s quiet and Sam thinks that’s probably not what he was asking after.
“I mean, I have had friends,” he says, feeling defensive now, “but Dad’s just pulled me out of like, the 3rd school this year. I know it wasn’t his fault, they were getting suspicious because you and Dad were away on a hunt and the school nurse wanted to talk to someone in person about my vaccinations and I had to say you couldn’t come in and then they were all ‘well, where’s your guardian then’ and, uh, yknow.” He trails off because Dean looks… well, he looks bad.
“We went to the cinema?” he tries instead, “the other week. I wanted to see the new BFG movie but it was your birthday and Dad said we only had enough for the one ticket and they were still playing Batman Returns and you wanted to see it again ‘cause you’ve definitely got a crush on Catwoman so,” Sam grins, and starts fiddling with the sugar packets. “And Dad’s said we can go camping when it gets warmer, so long as we take the crossbow and guns for practice, although I don’t really need the practice anyways, I’m getting pretty good you know, and Dad says he’s thinking about letting me come along with you guys soon, even if I just stay in the car, so, yeah, that’ll be cool.”
He looks up from the teepee of sugar packets and suddenly Dean’s hand is on his, and his expression is almost frantic.
“I tried Sammy,” Dean sounds oddly desperate, and his hand is a bit too tight, “God, I tried you know? And I should’ve tried harder because I wanted you to have fun , at least, more fun than I did, but you deserved more than that - I wanted you to stay -’
The waitress is back again, sliding pancakes under Sam’s nose and man they smell amazing, his mouth is watering immediately but he can’t focus on that right now because he doesn’t like the waver in Dean’s voice, and panicked too-brightness threatening in his very green eyes (Dean’s, exactly Dean’s, those hadn’t changed one bit). He used to look like this when Dad had been gone longer than he said he would be. When the last bit of bread was mouldy and Sam knew they were out. When the motel owner checked in on them again, on ‘those poor two boys .’
Sam feels that weird tug in his stomach that’s only started up recently where he wants to make it go away, wants Dean to go back to smiling and hitting him with the menu.
Sam waits until the waitress has fussed around offering them ketchup and left until he leans over, pats Dean’s arm, feeling kinda awkward about it but not knowing what else to do.
“I do have fun,” Sam says, “Batman was cool.”
Sam actually thought Batman was pretty lame and way too complicated but he knows Dean loved it, remembers Dean 2 weeks ago slinging his arm round Sam’s shoulders as they left the theatre and crowing very loudly to the people on the street ‘ that Simba, was the best movie of the goddamn year.’