A/N: So, my thinking was that Season 10, while excellent, was getting pretty grim in the second half, and I wanted some brotherly fluffiness. And I love the protective big brother and little brother dynamic…So this happened. It was going to be just a short little fluffy piece, but they were just too cute and I was having fun, and so it kind of exploded. This takes place not too long after Executioner's Song, but before the Mark starts really taking over Dean. And, in my head, little Sammy looks like Jared's son Tom. I hope you like.

A/N 2: So, I had way too much fun writing this, and you guys were amazing in your positive responses and how much you enjoyed this, so I am proud to announce "About A Boy (Again), Again"! It's a not-really-sequel, more of an extended edition/deleted scenes version of this one-more of these adorable boys and their 'garden angel'. You should click on over and check it out...after reading this one, of course. :)

Dean tested the step beneath him, and when it didn't creak he moved slowly forward, motioning for Sam to follow. Freaking witches, in their freaking moldy basements that smelled like…no, he wasn't gonna go there. The smell got worse the closer he got to the bottom of the stairs, and he choked down a gag. He waited until Sam (who had pulled his shirt up over his nose in an attempt to mask the smell) joined him on the landing, counted to three and kicked the door in.

The witch was standing in the middle of the room muttering over an altar and burning some truly atrocious-smelling herbs. She glanced up in surprise as they burst in, and for a moment Dean thought that she was one of the few witches he'd seen that actually looked like a witch—black robes, hunched back, warts and all. "Hold it right there!" he barked. "Back it up, back it up," he gestured with his shotgun for her to move away from the fire which Sam quickly doused with a jug of holy water. It crackled and went out in a puff of purple smoke, and Dean noticed that Sam took a moment to sigh in relief before turning to kick the altar over. They must have gotten there in time, then.

"No!" the witch shrieked as the altar toppled to the floor, artifacts shattering across the hardwood. "You'll pay for that, hunter," she hissed, then started muttering something in Latin.

Her power was crippled with the smashing of the altar, but Dean had no doubt she had enough juice left to pack a good punch—without giving it a second thought he pulled the trigger and she went down, her hand half-raised as she fell. Behind him, Sam grunted and staggered to the floor.

"Sam!" He whirled around. Had he been too slow? But before he had finished crossing the floor between them, Sam was already pushing himself to his feet.

"M'okay," Sam said, waving a hand as he stood.

Dean eyed him critically. "Dude, that witch just whammied you—that's not okay."

"No, I know," Sam said. "I just…" He stood still, eyes distant as though he was taking inventory. "I don't think anything's happening," he said at last. He waited another beat, then looked at Dean. "I guess she didn't get to finish whatever she was doing when you shot her. It just winded me."

"Okay," Dean said at last. "But you tell me if anything starts feeling off, you got it?" Sam nodded. "Good. So, did we get it all?"

"Yeah," Sam said, nodding toward the remains of the fire. "If it had gone out like a regular fire, we would've been too late, but we cut it off in the middle. Smashing the altar stopped the spell completely."

"So the kid's good?" Dean asked. This witch had been another one of the child-eating variety—except instead of physically eating the kids, she did her little magic fire with a lock of their hair and sucked the life out of them from a safe distance.

"She's good," Sam assured him. "We got here in time."

They set to work disposing of the witch and the more dangerous elements scattered on the floor. Dean watched Sam as they cleaned, and by the time they were done and he still seemed to be okay, Dean was willing to accept that maybe he had taken the witch out before she had time to hurt his brother. Good.

"So what's up with this Grand Coven, man?" he asked as he started up the Impala. "Is it like a rule that they have to eat kids or something?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. It is kind of an old-school witch thing to do, I guess. And I think they've been around a while."

"Why haven't we heard of them before now?"

"It sounds like they laid pretty low until they started looking for Rowena," Sam said. "And I think they stayed in Europe."

"Great," Dean sighed. "So she brings her trouble over here and they all come running after her. Freaking witches."

Sam smiled at that.

Dean noticed Sam fidgeting more than he usually did as the next couple of hours passed. "You okay, man?" he asked at last.

"I can't get comfortable," he complained. He swallowed. "I'm starting to think maybe there was a little mojo left in the witch after all."

Dean's eyes widened in concern. "What? You th—"

"Stop the car!" Sam cut him off sharply and Dean slammed on the brakes. The car was still sliding to a stop when Sam flung open the passenger door and leaned out, retching violently onto the gravel.

Dean cursed and jumped out, rushing around to Sam's side of the car. The ground was splattered with a toxic looking black goo that took on a disgusting sheen in the moonlight, and he grimaced, placing himself out of the way and propping Sam up to keep him from tumbling forward into the mess. Long minutes passed before Sam coughed and leaned back against the seat with a moan, closing his eyes. Dean passed him a water bottle from under the seat. He eyed the ground with distaste. Whatever that was couldn't be good, but maybe Sam was alright now that he'd gotten it out?

"You okay?" he asked tentatively.

"I don't know," Sam groaned, eyes still closed. "I think…" He swallowed. "No. Something's wrong, man," he said, voice tight. He leaned against the dashboard, folding his arms over his head. "It hurts, Dean, I—ah!" He cried out suddenly and arched back against the seat.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean reached in and took Sam by the shoulders as he started to shake, searching desperately for something that would tell him what was happening.

Sam cried out again, arms flailing as he started to seize and his hand caught Dean in the chest, shoving him back. Dean staggered on the loose gravel, narrowly avoiding the mess on the ground and stumbling a few feet back into a ditch on the side of the road. By the time he scrambled back up, Sam was lying across the seat on his side, curled in on himself impossibly small and moaning in pain. As he reached the car, Dean gaped in horror as he realized that Sam didn't just look small—he was small, and getting smaller before Dean's eyes. Before he could blink, Sam had vanished into a pile of denim and plaid on the front seat.

"Sam?" Dean whispered. The bundle of clothing stirred. "Sammy?" More movement, growing increasingly frantic, and suddenly a small head found the neck of Sam's t-shirt and popped out. Wide hazel eyes stared fearfully at Dean. Eyes he knew too well, in a face he hadn't seen in twenty-eight years. "Sam?"

The frightened eyes widened in terror and Sam scrabbled back toward the other door. At least, he tried to, anyway. His arms were caught somewhere inside the t-shirt, which was still wrapped in the plaid over-shirt, and all he succeeded in doing was thrashing off the side of the seat. Instinctively, Dean reached out and grabbed him before he hit the console, and his floundering ramped up into panicked flailing.

"No, no, no! Put me down! Dean?! Dean!" Sam cried.

"Hey, Sam, it's okay, it's me. I—" One of Sam's wildly waving fists caught him in the nose and Dean slid into the seat and pulled Sam against his chest, pinning his little arms against him.

"No, lemme go!" Sam shrieked. "Dean! Where's Dean?"

"Sammy, it's me! It's okay, man, it's Dean." He remembered how disoriented he'd felt when that other witch had tiny-fied him, and his transformation had been pain-free. Sam was more than entitled to freak out at this point.

"No, no, no, no, no," the little voice kept repeating, Sam struggling uselessly against his brother's arms.

"Sam, really, it's okay. It's—ow!" A set of small but vicious teeth sank into his forearm. "Okay, man, calm down, it's me. It's Dean. I'm right here." He kept his voice steady, willing Sam to pick up on the calm.

"Dean?" Sam asked uncertainly, struggles dying away.

"Yeah," Dean said, sighing in relief and loosening his grip. Sam pulled away and stood on the seat, eye-level with Dean, gray t-shirt hanging like an over-sized robe and pooling around his feet. To Dean's surprise, he reached over and grabbed his face, one little hand on each cheek, and narrowed his eyes, peering intently into Dean's. Dean didn't pull away, and he saw the moment recognition hit.

"Dean," Sam said again, no question this time. He titled his head quizzically to one side. "You got big." He sounded mildly surprised.

Okay. Not quite the reaction he was expecting. "I got big?"

Sam nodded, dropping his hands. "Are you a grown-up now?" he asked.

"Am I a—" Oh, no. No, no, this wasn't good. "Yeah," he said slowly. "And so are…" Crap. "Sam, how old are you?"

Sam held up three fingers. Dean swallowed hard. No, maybe this was still okay. He was obviously physically three, and maybe his eggs were still just a little scrambled. "But you're not—You're not supposed to be three. Right?"

Sam wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. "I fink so. I don't fink it's my birfday yet." His eyes widened. "Is it my birfday?" he asked excitedly.

"No, it's not your birthday," Dean groaned and shut his eyes. "Crap." Okay, so this was new. This was new and this was bad. Story of their lives.

Sam's face fell. "Wassa matter, Dean? Did I do somefing wrong?"

"No, Sammy, you're fine," Dean sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry for biting you," he said in a small, worried voice.

Dean opened his eyes to see Sam's anxious ones staring back. Oh man, and he'd thought the puppy dog eyes were effective on a thirty-one year-old! He managed a smile, reaching up a hand to the side of Sam's face. He'd forgotten the way Sam's hair used to curl around his ears like that. Mom probably would have called it angelic. "You're okay," he repeated, tucking a curl back behind his ear. "I've just had a really bad day."

"How come?"

Dean shook his head. "You don't remember a witch, do you?"

"I 'member you read me a story about a witch," Sam answered after thinking for a moment. "She made a house out of candy, and she eated little kids. I didn't like dat story."

Dean chuckled bitterly. "You know what? Me neither. Witches suck." Especially this one. Obviously, killing her had just slowed the curse down, not stopped it (which would have been nice, but hardly ever happened). They'd never gotten near enough for her to plant a hex bag, and she hadn't had one of those squeezy age-bag thingies like the one who had turned Dean a while back. Destroying her altar hadn't done anything, so the only option at this point looked like it was going to be a counter-curse. And aging spells were a common enough thing—the trick would be finding the right one. This was going to take a while.

He looked back over at Sam who had sat down inside his tent of a shirt. "We should probably find you some clothes that fit, huh?"

"My shirt's too big," Sam agreed. He stuck out his arms to demonstrate, and the short sleeves came down to his wrists.

That got a laugh out of Dean. "Let's see what we can find."

The next town they hit had a Wal-Mart, the only place Dean could think of that would be open at eleven at night and selling children's clothes. Sam sat happily in the front of the buggy, wrapped in his giant shirt and examining everything Dean threw in. Since he didn't know how long this was going to take to fix, Dean figured he should get enough clothes to last a little while. He remembered little Sammy attracting messes like a magnet and figured it would be the same the second time around. Shirts, pants, socks, underwear (no diapers, thank the Lord. Dean had done diaper duty as a five year-old and had enough of it then—he'd gotten Sammy toilet trained as soon as he started walking.)…one pair of shoes and pajamas as an afterthought—Batman, at Sam's request.

Sam eagerly changed into his Batman pajamas in the car, and by the time they rolled out of town he was asleep, snuggled in the pile of his old clothes with his head resting on Dean's thigh. Keeping his voice low so as not to wake him, Dean called Cas. Voicemail. "Hey, Cas, it's Dean. Listen, uh, something's…something's wrong with Sam. I could really use your help here, man. Get to the bunker as soon as you can." He could use all the help he could get on this one, especially given that his geekboy researcher no longer knew how to read.

Sam sighed in his sleep and shifted against Dean's leg. He stilled when Dean rested a hand on his head, and Dean couldn't help a small smile. He stroked absently at the soft hair. If Sam was stuck as a toddler, at least he remembered his big brother. They could figure the rest out.

Around two in the morning, Dean pulled into the bunker garage. Very carefully, he eased a sleeping Sam off the seat and up against his shoulder. Manhandling an unconscious brother was a lot easier when the kid was missing four feet and a couple hundred pounds. Sam slept through the transfer to his own bed, and Dean left the door open after tucking him in, both so the hall lamp could act as a nightlight, and so Dean could keep an ear out from his room. Too tired to worry any more tonight, he stumbled across the hall, kicked off his boots and collapsed into bed.

Five hours later, he woke to a tiny finger poking him repeatedly in the cheek. "Unh?"

"Wake up, Dean," sing-songed a little voice. He cracked an eye to glare at the source of the poking—a pajama-clad Sam with a ferocious case of bed hair sitting cross-legged on his other pillow. And still tiny. Crap. Not a dream, then. The poking stopped when Dean opened his eye and Sam sat back.

"What're you doin' up, Sammy? Y'alright?" Dean asked.

"I'm hungry," Sam declared.

Dean blinked at the clock behind Sam. "Aw, c'mon, man, it's barely seven o'clock!"

"Is dat breakfis time?" Sam asked hopefully.

Dean sighed. He didn't remember morning being so early last time Sam had been three. But then, he'd been younger and full of energy then too. "Fine, yes, we can have breakfast." He rolled off the bed and onto his feet, and Sam hopped down eagerly behind him, little bare feet slapping the tile as he padded after him.

He scanned the fridge as Sam climbed into a chair and sighed again. He'd been meaning to do a grocery run when they got back from that last hunt. The current contents of the fridge included beer, a potato and…"You want a burrito?"

"For breakfis?" Sam asked skeptically.

Dean shrugged, grabbing the bag of leftovers and shutting the fridge. "It's either that or…" He glanced around the kitchen. "Well, just that, really. We have no food." He sat down and held out a foil-wrapped burrito. Sam considered it, then decided hunger won out over unconventionality. "Hang on a sec," Dean said as Sam reached for it. He walked around the table and grabbed Sam's shirt, tugging it up over his head. Sam tilted his head questioningly and Dean smiled. "Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

"Huh?"

"You're going to be covered in sauce by the time you're done." Dean set the burrito down on the table. "Go at it, man."

As predicted, Sam and the table in front of him required a wipe-down by the end of the meal. Deciding research could wait until they had food in the kitchen, Dean returned Sam to his room to get dressed and was promptly shooed out with an emphatic "I do it myself!" He had time for a quick shower before Sam pushed open the door to his room—he was gonna have to remind the kid how to knock. "Vese are not good shoes, Dean," Sam declared, pointing to his feet. He was successfully dressed—even mostly matching—with one exception…

"You got 'em on the wrong feet, there, buddy," Dean told him.

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'." He sat him down and switched his shoes. "Better?"

Sam waggled his feet. "Uh-huh."

The trip to the store was more taxing than Dean had anticipated. Sam finally had to be confined to the seat in the front of the cart when every aisle offered something new to wander off and look at. By the time they got to the register, he had to return several things that Sam had snuck into the cart while he wasn't watching, and the car ride had been a constant level of high-alert with every little change in traffic making Dean wonder if he shouldn't have gotten a car seat too. He was exhausted by the time they got home, and it was only 10:30.

Tired or not, he hauled out every file he could find that looked remotely connected to aging magic—the sooner he got this fixed, the better. He settled Sam down in a chair across from him with any empty notebook and some colored pencils he'd found with some old map-making stuff that were probably really expensive, but what else was the kid going to do? The bunker wasn't exactly child-friendly.

The rest of the morning passed peaceably (Sam always had liked coloring), Dean's research broken occasionally by requests to help sharpen pencils. Note to self: If this wasn't fixed by the next time he had to go out, he was buying crayons. He leaned back and stretched when his stomach growled. "You hungry, Sammy?"

"Yeah!" Sam agreed, dropping his pencils.

Dean smiled. The kid was excited for everything. He stood, eyeing the papers littering Sam's side of the table. Most were undecipherable scribbles or vaguely animal/human-shaped, but one caught his eye and he slid it over. It was just colors—mostly red and yellow, white in the middle and black scattered throughout—but something about it nagged at Dean. "Hey, Sammy, what's this one?"

Sam looked over and shrugged. "I dunno. I dreamed about it last night, I fink. It was kinda scary. Should I go wash my hands?"

"Hmm? Yeah, go wash up and I'll come make us some lunch." Dean studied the drawing a second longer as Sam raced ahead of him to the kitchen. The more he looked at it, the more it could only be one thing—a figure glowing in white, darkness and fire—and how wrong was it that Sam was stuck with the brain of a toddler but was still having nightmares about Hell?

Dean held back a smile at the way Sam's head had started to droop over the last half of his PB & J, and it had taken surprisingly little effort to put him down for a nap. He was able to finish the entire box of folders he'd started that morning before the door at the top of the stairs creaked open.

"Cas!" Dean smiled in relief. "Man, am I glad to see you." He got to his feet as the angel reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Dean," Castiel nodded. His eyes scanned the room, looking for Sam. "I came as soon as I got your message. What happened? Is Sam alright?"

Dean's grin faded, and he rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. "I don't know, man, he's—"

"Dean?"

They both turned to see Sam hovering uncertainly in the hall door, eyeing Castiel warily. "Hey, Sammy. It's okay." Dean gave him an encouraging smile, beckoning him forward with one hand. Sam hurried in and collided with Dean's leg, keeping it squarely between himself and the newcomer as he wrapped one arm around Dean's calf and stuck his thumb in his mouth. His eyes stayed nervously on Cas.

Cas's eyebrows rose in alarm. "Is that…?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded. He reached down to rest one hand on Sam's hair. "He's…he's three, man. And not just on the outside, but, like, all of him! That's all he remembers, and I don't…" He swallowed, reining in the panic he'd been holding back since yesterday and hadn't meant to unload on Castiel. "I don't know how to fix this," he finished quietly.

Cas nodded thoughtfully, studying Sam with a critical eye. "What happened?

Dean rubbed Sam's hair as he felt him shifting uncomfortably behind him. "It was a witch. I took her out, but not fast enough, and she hit him with something. A couple hours later he was puking his guts up and then boom! Mini-Sam."

Cas nodded again and crouched down in front of Sam. "May I?" he asked, reaching out a hand.

Sam let out a soft whine and scooted farther behind Dean. "Hey, it's alright, Sammy," Dean said, kneeling beside his brother and draping an arm securely over his shoulder. "I guess you don't remember Castiel, do you?" Sam shook his head, curls bouncing back and forth. "He's a friend. You don't have to worry about him. He's not gonna hurt you. Right?" This last was directed back at the angel.

"I have no intention of hurting anyone," Cas said firmly. He smiled at Sam. "Your brother is right, Sam. I am your friend. There's no need to be afraid." Sam kept his thumb resolutely in his mouth, but didn't flinch away when the angel touched two of his fingers gently to Sam's forehead.

To their surprise, Sam giggled. "Dat tickles," he laughed as Cas pulled his hand away.

"He is unharmed," Cas said in answer to Dean's questioning eyebrow. "The curse appears to have run its course."

"In that case, shouldn't he be, you know, taller?" Dean asked.

"It was a powerful curse, Dean," Cas said, getting to his feet. "It will do no more to him, but neither will it lift of its own accord."

"I'm guessing you can't fix it?"

"Not with my grace in its current state," Cas sighed. "But I believe it can be corrected with the proper counter-curse."

"That's what I've been trying to—what, Sam?" He looked down to where Sam was tugging earnestly on his sleeve.

Sam was clearly feeling ignored four feet below the conversation, and stretched up his arms for Dean to pick him up. Once he was back up in the middle of things, he nestled his head against Dean's shoulder, blinking away the sleepy remnants of his nap. Dean patted his back and turned back to Castiel. "I've been looking," he said, gesturing back to the boxes stacked by the table. "There's a hell of a lot of material on aging magic."

"You're not 'posed to say 'hell', Dean," Sam interrupted, pulling his thumb out of his mouth. His little eyes were narrowed in disapproval. "Dat's a bad word."

"Uh…" Dean blinked, caught off guard. He looked at Cas, who was biting his lip and staring at the floor in a futile attempt not to smile. "Right. Um, sorry, Sammy." Sam nodded primly, and something that sounded suspiciously like a snort came from Cas's direction. "Shut it, Cas."

Castiel schooled his face into something more solemn. "Of course. Let me see what you have gathered from your research thus far."

They returned to table, where Sam declared that he was tired of coloring, which Dean supposed was only fair. With limited entertainment options, he finally set him up in a chair off to the side with the iPad and Sesame Street.

"Perhaps you should consider getting him some toys," Cas mused when Dean returned to the table. He was flipping through the drawings Sam had left on the table. "The bunker does not seem to have much available in the way of childcare."

"Yeah, well, I doubt the Men of Letters had a daycare," Dean grumped. "Hey, I wanted to show you this." He searched through the drawings until he found the one that had troubled him earlier. "What's that look like to you?"

Cas's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Given the context of Sam's previous experiences, it rather puts me in mind of Hell," he said at last.

"That's what I thought. He said he had a dream about it. How is it he can't remember any of his life, but he still dreams about Hell?" Dean demanded.

"From what I was able to sense when I scanned him just now, his memories are still intact for the time being. They are being blocked by the curse, but would seem to be accessible to his unconscious mind."

"For the time being?"

"His brain is not equipped to function beyond the capabilities of a normal three year-old human—in time his memories will be pushed out as he acquires new ones appropriate to his current stage of life," Cas explained. "For now, most of his dreams will be memories as they fight to remain in his mind. I am afraid that the more vivid ones will be the most prominent, and in Sam's case, they are also most likely the most unpleasant. In a few weeks' time, they will be gone and he will stop having nightmares."

"It is not going to take that long to get him back to normal," Dean growled, swallowing down the panicked realization that if they didn't do this fast enough, there wouldn't be any Sam to get back.

"Of course not. I didn't mean to imply…" Cas shook his head. "Show me what you have found so far."

What he had so far wasn't much, and though they managed to get through another box of folders between the two of them, they still had pretty much nothing.

Dean sighed the fourth time Sam came over and asked him to start a new episode on the iPad. "This is ridiculous," he told Cas. "You know he's the one who taught me how to use that thing?"

"Distracting though he may be, he is remarkably well-behaved for a child of his age," Cas said.

Dean arched an eyebrow. "And how would you know? You been running some kind of angelic baby-sitting service?"

Cas shrugged. "When Jimmy Novak was still…present, I was able to see his memories, including some of when Claire was young." He tilted his head. "And in my time working at the Gas n' Sip, many parents with small children came in—there were several occasions I wished I had some holy water to test for demonic possession."

Dean barked out a surprised laugh. "Yeah, well, I guess Sammy always was a pretty good kid."

"Dean." Sam had returned, patting the iPad against Dean's knee. "It made a noise and went off."

Dean sighed again. "Battery probably went out." He looked at his watch. "That's probably enough TV for now anyway. Don't want to rot your brain. You learn anything?"

That had always been Dean's line after the show—making sure little Sammy learned something as they bounced between motel rooms—and Sam happily responded to the routine. "Ve Count counted to ten, but I already can do dat," he said proudly. "An' Kermit singed about da letter 'S', an' 'S' is for Sammy, right?"

Dean nodded. "Yep."

Sam beamed. "He said it's also for snake, an' san'wich, an' sub…submanine. Dat's a boat dat goes under de water. An' nen Ernie teached Cookie Monster how to share his cookies. Do we have cookies? I can show you!"

"Nice try, kiddo," Dean smirked. "No cookies before supper."

Sam stuck out his lip in a pout, then arched a mischievous eyebrow. "After supper?" he asked hopefully.

Dean laughed again. "We'll see," and he knew Sam knew he'd won that one. "Go wash your hands and you can help me make supper." Sam raced to the kitchen and Dean shook his head. He was so tiny—seriously, where did he keep all that energy?

Cas's head was tilted to one side, studying Sam as he ran off. "Your brother is very cute," he said pensively, surprising Dean.

Dean snorted softly in response. He'd never admit it, but what with the bouncy curls, the earnest, round little face and big eyes, and the r's that were almost w's…yeah, he really was.

Dinner was meatloaf, which Sam had gleefully dug into to help Dean mix together, which then necessitated a bath while it baked. Harkening back to breakfast, Dean stripped Sam of his shirt, pinned a dishtowel around his neck, and ended the meal needing to clean no more than Sam's mouth and hands.

"Do you stay here too?" Sam asked Cas, who was studying, but not eating, the Oreo Sam had shared with him.

"I do stay quite often," Cas replied. "And I will be staying for some time now, if that's alright with you."

Sam nodded. "Where's your room?"

"I do not have one."

Sam tilted his head curiously. "Why not?" He turned to Dean. "Dere's lossa rooms here, Dean, can we give him one? He needs somewhere to sleep."

Cas smiled warmly. "That is very kind of you, Sam, but I do not sleep."

That gave Sam pause. "Ever?" he asked at last.

"I only sleep when I am sick."

"How comes you don't sleep at night?"

"I am an angel. Angels do not need to sleep as often as people do."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "You're not a angel," he scoffed. "You don't have any wings."

"I do have wings. You simply cannot see them," Cas said, unoffended.

"Why not?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"I exist in my true state as a being of energy, and within my vessel, my wings function on a different frequency than human eyes can…" He trailed off as Sam blinked, eyes glazing over uncomprehendingly. He turned to Dean, who snorted at the helpless look on his face.

"His wings are invisible, Sammy," Dean said as Cas stammered, taking pity on his friend. "Cause he's in disguise as a human."

"Oh," Sam said, and seemed satisfied.

"Gotta speak the language, man," Dean said with a smirk. "Three year-old's a whole different ball game."

"Are you a garden angel?" Sam asked.

They both blinked at him. "A what?" Cas asked.

"A garden angel," Sam repeated patiently.

Dean's mind conjured up an image of Castiel-shaped religious lawn statuary before something clicked. "You mean a guardian angel, Sammy?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Cas blinked thoughtfully. "Well, I…suppose you could say that."

"Are you our garden angel?"

Cas smiled sadly. "I don't know that I do a very good job of it, but, yes—I do try to look after you and your brother."

Sam smiled warmly and reached across the table to pat Castiel's hand with his tiny one. "Fanks for taking care of us," he said sincerely.

Cas gaped and couldn't seem to find an answer, and after a long moment, Dean stood. "Well, Sammy, I think it's time for bed."

"I'm not tired," Sam said, followed instantly by a yawn.

"Yeah, you are."

"No, I'm no-o-ot." A massive yawn broke up his reply.

"Go brush your teeth." Sam crossed his arms defiantly. "Do it without fussing and I'll read you a story."

"Okay," Sam agreed, fight draining away. "G'night," he waved to Castiel and raced for the bathroom.

Cas's eyes followed him until he rounded the corner. "Your brother is…" He shook his head.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "All there or not, he's still so…Sam."

Story time was turning out to be a bit problematic. Glancing over Sam's desk and bookshelf didn't reveal much in the way of suitable bedtime story material. Most of it was demon lore or references on the Mark of Cain—no surprise that Sammy wasn't letting that one go, and Dean wouldn't have expected him to anyway. There was a stack of what looked like the books from that Game of Thrones show, and Dean snorted—definitely not appropriate. He passed over some Agatha Christie, some more reference stuff and eventually decided the humor in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would go over Sam's head at this point.

"Alright," he said, sitting down on the bed next to an expectant Sam. "We've got 'Glynfield's Guide to the Supernatural Beasts of the American Continent'."

Sam wrinkled his nose skeptically. "Dat sounds boring."

"It probably is," Dean admitted. "But it's got some cool pictures." He cracked the pages to reveal a beautifully detailed drawing of a fire elemental, and Sam's eyes widened in interest. "You want me to read some of it?"

Sam wriggled out from under the covers and up into Dean's lap, pulling one corner of the blanket up after him. "Ready," he said.

Dean huffed a small laugh and started reading, giving abridged descriptions of the creatures (skipping over the scarier material) and answering Sam's volley of questions. When the questions stopped coming, Dean glanced down to see Sam's eyes at half-mast, and he shut the book, easing Sam back down onto his mattress. "Goodnight, little brother," he whispered, tucking the blanket in around him. Sam mumbled something that might have been a response, and he switched off the lamp and tip-toed out.

He'd gone through a few more files until the words started to blur together, then collapsed into his own bed. Years of hunters' training and a finely honed big brother instinct had his eyes snapping open a few hours later at the sound of the distressed cries echoing across the hall.

By the time he'd swung his feet out of bed the cries were louder, frightened whimpering mixed with gasps and the occasional shout of his name. "Dee-ee!" Sam called, and Dean was lunging across the hallway.

He flicked on the light in Sam's room to see his little brother thrashing wildly in a tangle of sheets, tears trickling from his unopened eyes. He quickly sat down on the bed, taking Sam's tiny shoulders in his hands. "Hey, Sammy, wake up, buddy, it's okay."

Sam blinked awake with a gasp, staring tearily up at Dean. "Dee?"

"Yeah, Sammy, I'm right here," he said warmly, and Sam scrambled up into his arms, burying his face in Dean's shirt. "It's okay, Sammy, I gotcha," he soothed as the little body shook in his arms. "I gotcha. You have a bad dream?"

Sam sniffed and nodded against Dean's chest.

"You wanna tell me about it?"

Sam's little fists clenched tighter in his shirt and he huddled farther into Dean. "I was falling," he whispered. "A mean voice was laughing at me, an' you were dere, but somebody hurted you an' you were bleeding." He looked up, watery eyes looking over Dean's face, checking for damage. "Dere was a big hole, an' it was dark, an' cold, an' forever, an' dere was fire an' it hurt, an'-an'-an'…nen I fell in," he moaned. "It was really scary," he whimpered, and he burrowed his face back into Dean's chest, moisture quickly spreading across his shirt as he started crying again.

Dean shook his head and hugged Sam tighter. It just wasn't fair. Sam had never deserved to go to Hell in the first place, and he really wished there was someone he could shoot for making him relive it all again. It'd been a while since the Hell nightmares had bothered him this much, but Cas had said the nasty stuff was going to be pushing its way to the front. Having no context for this crap probably made it all the more terrifying. "Yeah, it sounds pretty scary to me too," he agreed. "But it's okay. It was just a bad dream," he soothed. He stroked the soft hair tucked up under his chin. "I've got you now, and you're not falling anywhere. I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you, Sammy," he promised. "You're safe."

He rocked him and held him a few minutes more as his trembling subsided. "You alright?" he asked at last.

Sam sniffed and nodded uncertainly.

"You wanna come back to my room with me?" Dean offered, and Sam nodded quickly.

Still holding him tightly, he carried his brother across the hall. Easing back under the covers, he tugged them up around them both. Secure under his arm, Sam snuggled up against Dean's chest, one little fist still clenched in his shirt. "You can go to sleep now, Sammy," Dean assured him. "I'll be right here."

"Fanks, Dee," a little whisper drifted up from under the covers.

He fell asleep to the gentle sound of his brother breathing.

Dean came awake as Sam shifted beneath his arm. "You awake, Dean?" he whispered.

Dean cracked an eye to search out the glow of the clock. 5:12. "S'not time to get up yet, Sammy," he said. He heard Sam stifle a yawn and the corner of his mouth quirked up. "Go back to sleep, buddy."

"Okay…" Sam whispered, already growing still again on his side of the bed.

The next time Dean woke, it was 7:30 and he was alone. He sat up quickly, and after checking Sam's room, set off to find him. There was no telling what he could get up to unsupervised around here, and so it was with relief that he caught the sound of his brother's childish babbling and Castiel's gravelly voice floating out of the kitchen. It was with somewhat less relief that he took in the sight that greeted him there.

The table, countertops, a large portion of the floor, Sam and, oddly, Castiel's hair were dusted in flour. There was a broken egg on the floor by fridge, another in the middle of the room, a splash of milk in front of the stove, and something white and sticky on the left side of Sam's face. Dean's eyes widened in alarm as they met Castiel's, who had the grace to look guilty. Sam beamed. "We makin' pancakes, Dean!" he exclaimed, rushing to greet him while carrying a wooden spoon that dripped batter onto the floor.

Dean shook his head, looking over the kitchen again.

"Sorry," Cas said. "I did not want to wake you, but Sam was insistent that seven o'clock was breakfast time. I did not realize that pancakes were so complicated."

"They're…" Dean sighed. "They're not. Have you actually made them yet?"

"Jus' one," Sam chimed. "We were lookin' for a uvver spashala so we could flip dem." He threw up the hand holding the spoon to demonstrate, flinging batter back behind him.

"Another…" Dean sighed. He doubted he'd like the answer to this. "Why do you need another one?"

"We lost de firs' one," Sam said.

Dean cocked an eyebrow at Cas, who managed to look even guiltier before flicking his eyes upward. Dean followed his gaze to find a half-cooked pancake and spatula stuck to the ceiling. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't even want to know," he said when Cas started to explain. "Just…stop it before the place burns down. You clean up this," he said, gesturing to the kitchen. "I'll clean up this," he pointed to Sam. "And then I will finish the pancakes, and you two will sit quietly." He scooped up Sam, spoon and all, and carted him to the bathroom. "Honestly, it's like I've got two kids now," he grumbled.

After breakfast, Dean and Cas got back to work. Sam sat at the table with them, content for now to color some more and declaring that he was going to draw the monsters from the book last night. About an hour passed as he chattered happily about what he was drawing, asking questions about the monsters or about what Dean and Cas were doing, or when snack time was, when Cas got up and muttered to Dean that he was going out. Dean supposed he couldn't blame him—life with a toddler took some readjusting, and he was less practiced than Dean (who was a little rusty himself). Still, it was a little irritating.

He'd made very little headway by the time Cas came back—not that they had gotten far before. They'd had to slow down and track down several spell books the files referenced but didn't include the actual information from. He arched a curious eyebrow as Cas descended the stairs. "You went out to get oranges?"

Cas looked puzzled, then looked down at the cardboard box in his hands where a large cartoon orange grinned up from the side. "Oh. No. This was the box they gave me at the thrift store." He held it out towards Dean, who walked over to look inside. The box was filled halfway up with old, mismatched toys. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I know you didn't want to gather too many children's supplies," Cas said quickly. "And I do not mean to imply with this gesture that we should be preparing to leave Sam as he is. I merely thought that our research might proceed more efficiently if Sam had better means with which to occupy himself."

It was true, Dean had balked at getting more than the bare minimum to take care of Sam, feeling like doing more would be giving up on fixing his brother. Cas did have a point, though. "Yeah, alright," he said. He turned back to the table where Sam was watching them curiously. "Hey, Sammy, Cas brought you something, you wanna come see?"

Eagerly, Sam hopped down from the table and hurried over. Cas crouched down, setting the box in front of him. Sam peered at the toys, eyes wide. "You're going to share your toys wif me?" he asked hopefully. Dean chuckled.

"What? No," Cas corrected. "These are not mine. They are for you."

Sam's eyebrows shot up under his hair and he looked at the box again, mouth dropping open. "All of dem?" he asked wonderingly.

"Yes."

Sam gasped, looked at the box, then up to Dean, as if seeking confirmation. "Go on, man," Dean nodded at the box. "Check it out."

Sam eagerly dove into the box. "Thanks, man," Dean said as Cas stood.

"He seems very surprised," Cas said.

Dean shrugged. "Well, on the road, you know, we never had a lot of stuff. That's probably more toys right there than he's ever had."

Cas tilted his head thoughtfully. "It isn't much," he argued.

"It's great, Cas," Dean assured him.

Sam suddenly shrieked from the floor and Dean whirled around, worried that he'd found something sharp or dangerous in the box.

"Look, Dean!" Sam squealed, jumping up and down in front of him, waving something gleefully in his hand. "Lookit, lookit, lookit!" Dean finally had to grab his hand to get him to stop waving whatever it was. "Issa Ninja Turtle!"

It was scuffed, well-worn, and missing a toe, but it was definitely a Ninja Turtle. "Well, look at that." Sam was practically shaking, he was so excited.

"Which is dis one, Dean?" he asked, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Let's see, red mask makes this one Raphael." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas raise an eyebrow.

"Raffiel," Sam repeated in awe. He spun around to face Cas. "I always wanted a Ninja Turtle," he enthused. He flung his arms around Castiel's knees. "Fank you, Cassy-ell," he said sincerely, hugging his legs.

"Oh," Cas said, surprised. "Ah, you're welcome, Sam." He patted him awkwardly on the head. He looked up at Dean. "What is a Ninja Turtle?"

"I guess Metatron never watched that one, huh? It was a cartoon about turtles that ate pizza and fought crime." He smiled when Cas's eyebrows drew together in bemusement. He shrugged. "It was the 80's. It was cool. You remember what they say, Sammy?"

"Cowabunga, dude!" Sam exclaimed, gesturing with the turtle.

None of this seemed to do anything to allay Cas's confusion. "You did good, man," Dean assured him. "Maybe we'll find you an episode on the iPad later."

Several hours later, Dean had to admit that, yes, Cas had had a point and the research was coming along a hell of a lot faster now that Sam could entertain himself. They'd finally found the box with material on reversing aging curses, which was at least a step in the right direction. More books had to be hauled out and some Latin got involved, which slowed things down again—Castiel's Latin hadn't gotten much use any time in the last millennia, and Dean didn't have much beyond exorcisms and a few choice dirty phrases (dead language or not, it never hurt to have flirting vocabulary).

Dean had gotten distracted watching Sam rolling a toy car around the library floor—okay, yes, the car Cas had found was a pink Barbie convertible, but the Ninja Turtle was driving, and the passengers included a tiny stuffed dog, a plastic dinosaur, two green army men, Darth Vader and a…slinky that was riding shotgun. He couldn't help a twinge of pride when Sam started making car noises that sounded like the Impala. "I believe I found something," Cas said, startling him out of his reverie.

"Yeah?" Dean asked, turning back hopefully.

Cas slid a large book across the table. "Aging curses come in many forms, but this book deals primarily with those specifically caused by witchcraft."

"Nice," Dean said, leaning in to see. He arched an eyebrow. "Dude, there's like a hundred spells in here."

"Better that than the potential thousands we have yet to search," Cas pointed out with a nod at the shelves behind them.

"Point," Dean agreed, grabbing for the book. "Gimme." Well, crap, it was all in Latin. Where was Sam's gigantic geek brain when you needed it? At least the Men of Letters were nothing if not thorough—they had written their very own Latin to English dictionary, and while looking up every word promised to be tedious as hell, he'd memorize the freaking thing if it would get Sam back.

The rest of the day passed quietly, with the exception of Sam's new tennis ball bouncing up onto the table occasionally and once hitting Castiel in the side of the head. After dinner, Dean cleaned up while Cas sat with Sam and watched Ninja Turtles on the iPad. Sam explained the show, more or less accurately, as it went along, and at bedtime, it was Cas asking for five more minutes.

"If Cassy-ell can stay up, den I want to too!" Sam insisted.

"Castiel is a grown-up and an angel and he doesn't sleep, remember?" Dean reminded him. Sam crossed his arms with a 'hmmph', and Dean shook his head. "Seriously, man, two kids," he repeated, scooping up Sam and dropping the iPad back into Cas's lap. "Knock yourself out."

Back in the room, Dean lowered Sam down onto his mattress and Sam clung tightly to Dean's neck, pulling him back down to his level. He nuzzled his face into Dean's cheek, then blew a raspberry and let go, falling back snickering onto his pillow.

"Oh, you know you're not getting away with that one, man," Dean warned, and Sam squealed and started to crawl away. Dean grabbed him and pinned him easily to the bed, yanking up his shirt and blowing a giant raspberry on his stomach in retaliation. Sam shrieked with laughter and rolled onto his side, trying to pull his top back down in a fit of delighted giggling.

"Your face is tickly," he declared.

"My face?" Dean asked, pointing to his three-day stubble. "This one?" Sam nodded, and Dean dove in for another raspberry, making sure Sam felt the full effect of the whiskers. "This face right here?"

"Yes! Yes! Stop it!" Sam laughed, cackling happily.

Dean chuckled and pulled away, tugging Sam's shirt back down into place. "Alright, kiddo, time for bed."

"Okay," Sam said, still smiling. As Dean leaned in to pull the blankets back, Sam looped his little arms around Dean's neck again and hugged him tightly. He let go and settled down into the pillow. "I love you, Dee."

Dean blinked in surprise. All the good and all the crap between them, it didn't matter—he'd always known his brother loved him, but they said it so much without saying it at all. Hearing the actual words flow so easily brought an unexpected catch to his throat, and he swallowed it down as he reached over one hand to cup the side of Sam's small face. "I love you too, Sammy," he said softly, stroking his thumb across his cheek and tucking back a runaway curl.

Sam smiled and closed his eyes, leaning for a moment into Dean's touch before nestling down into his pillow with a happy sigh. "'night, Dean," he yawned.

"Goodnight, buddy," Dean replied, pulling the blanket up a little higher over his sleepy brother.

The next morning found Sam in Dean's bed again—he'd dashed across the hall in the middle of the night and practically jumped on top of Dean, crying about a girl on fire on the ceiling, and Dean had hugged him and rubbed his back until he fell asleep again.

For breakfast they had Lucky Charms—Sam's all-time childhood favorite, and Dean made a point of stealing some of his marshmallows. Cas had apparently stayed up all night watching the Ninja Turtles, but he was back to the research table before Dean had gotten Sam settled with his toys.

A little after lunch, Dean looked up to where he'd left Sam playing on the floor, then balled up a piece of paper and threw it at Castiel's forehead. "Check it out," he smirked, nodding his head toward his brother.

Sam was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his toys, listing slightly to the left and on the verge of falling asleep. His mouth hung partly open, his head kept bobbing down toward his chest, and one of his eyes was nearly closed, while the other fluttered shut and half-way open and back again.

Dean held up a finger to Cas and mouthed "Watch this." He got up and circled around behind Sam, keeping out of his line of sight and grabbing a cushion from one of the chairs. Crouching silently behind his brother, he lay the cushion on the side Sam was starting to lean and nudged him gently in the shoulder. Sam's head rolled on his neck and he started a slow-motion fall. He was out before he hit the pillow.

Dean chuckled softly and walked back to the table. Cas had watched the proceeding with a puzzled expression. "Are you going to leave him on the floor?"

"Hell yeah," Dean said, dropping back into his chair. "You let sleeping babies lie, Cas."

"Would he not be more comfortable in bed?"

"I got him a pillow," Dean replied. He sighed at Cas's continued concerned expression. "Look, if I move him, he'll wake up. He wakes up, it's like a reset button—he's not going back to sleep. And a Sam who doesn't get his nap is a cranky Sam, and trust me when I tell you nobody wants that."

Cas nodded thoughtfully. "I would not have expected you to know so much about children," he said at last.

Dean shrugged. "Not my first rodeo, man. I've done the whole Little Sammy thing before. I learn from my mistakes."

Cas nodded and said no more, and Dean returned to his Latin and the spell book. "I had wondered," Cas said after a few minutes. "If Sam's mind has returned to where it was when he was three, why he has not inquired about your father." He looked thoughtful. "It occurs to me now that perhaps even at this early stage you were his primary caregiver, and so it has not yet occurred to him to miss your father."

Dean was quiet for a moment. Cas had hit uncomfortably close to home with that. By the time Sam had turned three, Dad was going out on the road more—sometimes leaving him alone with Dean if it was for just a day or two, or leaving them with Bobby or Pastor Jim if it was longer. Sam had always been excited to see Dad when he came back, but he'd also gotten used to him being away for a while.

"I'm sorry," Cas said. "I meant no offense…"

"No, no, it's fine," Dean said, waving a hand. "Truth is, Dad was leaving a lot more by the time Sam was this age. Kid was used to just me being around, so, I don't know, maybe he figures now that I'm 'a grown-up', I take care of him now. Honestly, I'm glad he hasn't asked. He gets back to normal, he'll remember just fine, and in the meantime, I don't want to tell a three year-old his dad is dead."

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Dean took a break at one point when Sam begged him to come and play with him. He never could resist those puppy-dog eyes. Cas kept researching while they played. Sam even shared the Ninja Turtle for a little while.

That night Dean decided to save himself a step and just put Sam to sleep in his room. It might make the nightmares easier, and, thinking back, Sam had never actually gotten his own bed until he was about five anyway. He did have a tendency to roll around if Dean's arm wasn't pinning him down, but the bed was big enough for him to move without bothering Dean.

As he thought, it did help—around one in the morning, Sam started fidgeting and whimpering. He came awake enough to mumble something about a man with yellow eyes following him, but Dean stroked his hair and whispered reassurances, and they were both asleep again in minutes.

"Yes!" Dean exclaimed. It was just after breakfast the next morning—Dean had left Cas to clean up and gone back to the spell book. "Yes! Ha!"

Cas came in from the kitchen, holding a dish towel and—was he wearing an apron? Where did he even find that? "Cas!" Dean cried, thrusting the spell book in his face. "I found it!" His smile vanished as a thought occurred to him. "Check the Latin, man, tell me I found it."

Cas took the book and studied the page. "I believe you are correct."

"What'd you find, Dean?" Sam asked, padding back into the room, still wearing his pajamas.

Dean laughed and lifted Sam up, hugging him tightly. "Just what I was looking for, Sammy!" he crowed. "Oh, we're gonna kick this thing in the a—" He caught himself. "I mean, remember that witch I was telling you about?" Sam nodded, although Dean suspected he had no idea what he was talking about. "Well, I found something to help me beat her."

"Yay!" Sam clapped his little hands. "Good for you, Dean!"

"This is a very complicated spell," Cas interrupted. "Some of these ingredients may be hard to come by."

Dean sent Sam off to get dressed while he and Cas went over the ingredients. It was pretty complex. It had to be mixed at sunset in a very precise order, and the worst part was that it all needed to brew for three days after it was mixed up. The components were pretty tricky, but they figured that between the Bunker's store room, a supplier Dean knew in Wichita, and a source Cas declined to name but was confident could get a griffin talon, they should be able to have everything by the end of the day.

Sam was excited at the prospect of a trip—even with the toys Cas had brought him, he'd been cooped up inside for several days. It was only two hours to Wichita, so Dean figured he could get his stuff, then he'd take Sam somewhere with a playground for lunch and let him run around.

"And if you're good at the store, we might even get ice cream afterwards," Dean offered.

Sam's eyes went wide. "I will be very good, Dean. I promise," he said eagerly.

"It smells funny in here," Sam informed Dean as they stepped into the store. Dean had to agree with him—herbal remedies and incense and…something that smelled like fish.

"Don't worry, buddy, we won't be here too long. You stay right by me and play with Raphael, okay? There's lots of stuff in here you don't need to be touching."

"I won't touch anyfing," Sam said, promised ice cream firmly in mind, and Dean had to smile at the earnestness in his voice.

He ran into a slight snag as they approached the counter. "Where's Sal?" he asked.

"Vacation," the younger man replied. "I'm his nephew, Brian. Don't worry, I'm a certified herbalist," he assured him with a smile.

"Yeah," Dean replied, eyeing the wire-rimmed glasses and long blond ponytail critically. "Okay. How much are fairy bones going for these days?"

Brian's smile fell. "Fairy bones? Dude, we're not that kind of store. Natural medications only—no drugs."

Dean rolled his eyes and leaned across the counter. "C'mon, man, I know what the sign in the window means."

He sputtered as holy water splashed across his face. "Yeah, alright," Brian said. He handed him a paper towel. "Had to check," he added as Dean dried his face off. He cast an eye down to the floor where Sam was watching him with narrowed eyes. "Don't see a lot of hunters with kids."

"Don't see a lot of demons with kids either," Dean snapped. "Name's Winchester, man, I'm in here all the time."

Brian nodded, relaxing. "Winchester, huh? That was one of the names Sal gave me. Sorry, man."

"Why'd you frow water on Dean?" Sam demanded.

"Don't worry about it, Sammy. It's okay," Dean said, rubbing his hair. He turned back to Brian. "So, fairy bones?"

"Yeah," Brian answered, ducking down behind the counter and coming up with a long box. "Any certain kind?"

"Uh," Dean consulted his list. "Ninth Realm…leg bones."

Brian cocked an eyebrow. "Very specific." He dug through the box. "Okay, yeah, we got those. Want me to grind 'em?"

"No, whole is fine," Dean said. "Gonna need some yarrow, crushed amethyst, three ounces of basilisk blood…"

For most of the conversation, Sam's attention was focused on the display case in front of him, little hands and face pressed up against the glass. Once he had looked over the colorful array of stones, leaves and glassware, he cast his eyes around the rest of the store, drifting a few feet away at one point in the direction of a taxidermied bird that was bigger than he was. Dean hooked two fingers under his collar and tugged him back toward the counter.

"Sorry," Sam whispered. He sat down on Dean's boots and started playing with Raphael.

Brian had seemed to relax once it was clear that Sam wasn't going to be making a mess of the store, though he kept shooting glances down at him the whole time. "What kind of spell work you need all this for?" he asked finally, counting out the cash Dean handed him. "Looks kind of witchy to me."

"We gonna fight a witch!" Sam said from the floor. Dean shushed him with a sharp glance.

"Maybe it is a little witchy, but it's also my business," Dean said coolly, taking the bag Brian handed him.

"Fair enough," Brain said. "Happy hunting."

Sam was quiet as Dean took his hand and led him out of the store. "I'm sorry, Dean," he said softly as Dean started up the Impala. "I didn' mean to make you mad."

"What? Oh, no, it's okay, Sammy," Dean said. "But this magic stuff is kind of a secret, and he was asking some questions he shouldn't have been asking." Sam blinked up at him worriedly, and Dean couldn't help a fond smile. He could tell the kid wasn't worried so much about not getting ice cream, but that he'd actually upset his brother. "You didn't make me mad, Sammy," he assured him. "It's okay."

"Okay," Sam said, brightening. Amazing how easy it was to make him happy. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Is dat man your friend?"

"No."

"Good," Sam said. "I didn' like him."

"Why not?"

Sam gave him a look as if it should have been obvious. "He frowed water on you. An' nen he tried to figure out your secrets. Dat's not very nice."

Dean chuckled. "No, it's not. But don't worry, we're done in there. You ready for lunch?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, then, here's the deal." Dean pulled the car into the parking lot of a small diner he'd spotted on the way into town. It was next to a school with a playground open to the public on the weekends. "We'll get some food in here, and then after we eat, you can play on the playground for a while." Sam's eyes widened excitedly at that. "After we're done, it's a long drive back home, so I want you to take a nap in the car."

"But—"

"And then after your nap," Dean pressed on. "We'll stop and get that ice cream. Sound good?"

Sam nodded. "Sounds good to me."

The diner was a popular place, and, leery of the crowd, Sam clung tightly to Dean's leg as they made their way up to the counter. "Dean, I wanna see," Sam said, tugging on Dean's jeans when they got to the register.

Dean hoisted him up and placed him on his shoulders and Sam laughed. "Wow, you're really tall, Dean," Sam marveled, stretching up a hand toward the ceiling.

Dean smirked. "That's right, I am. And don't you forget it, little brother."

"Well, hey, there," the girl behind the counter greeted them. "What can I get for you handsome fellas today?" She winked at Dean and he gave her his trademark grin in return. Although, with a toddler on his shoulders, that was, sadly, as far as it was going to get, curvy little red-head or not.

Dean ordered a burger and soda, and chicken nuggets for Sam (which made the little boy clap his hands gleefully).

"Alright," the girl said. She looked up at Sam. "You want chocolate or vanilla ice cream with that, sweetie?"

"What?" Dean asked.

"It's the weekend special," she explained, pointing to a sign behind her. "Kids get free ice cream."

Before Dean could say anything, Sam's little voice drifted down from above him. "I cannot have ice cream," he informed her seriously. "Not 'til after my nap."

She gave Dean an amused look and he smiled. "We made a deal earlier," he explained.

The girl nodded sagely, a smile twinkling in her eyes. "Oh, I see. Well, how about a free drink then?" Dean nodded and she looked back up to Sam. "What would you like to drink, sugar?"

"Chocolate milk!" Sam exclaimed. Then he leaned down to look at Dean. "Dean, can I have chocolate milk?"

"Yes, Sammy, you can have chocolate milk."

"I would like chocolate milk, please," Sam told her.

"Chocolate milk it is," she smiled.

Dean reached for his wallet and Sam patted him on the head. "Can I give her de money?"

Dean passed a twenty up to Sam, who handed it down ceremoniously to the girl. "You know, I think he may just be the cutest thing I've ever seen," the girl told Dean.

Dean grinned. "I like to think he gets that from me."

"I'll bet he does," she smiled. "Be out with your food in a minute."

Back on the road, it turned out there wasn't any need to have made a deal with Sam about the ice cream. What with all the energy he'd built up inside the Bunker over the past few days, he hit the playground like a tiny hurricane—after that, just getting stationary had him drifting off before Dean had pulled out of the parking lot, and he was sprawled across the seat and Dean's leg, completely out of it by the time they hit the interstate. He slept the whole way back, and Dean nudged him awake when he pulled up next to an ice cream stand.

"Nnh?" Sam mumbled, rubbing at confused, bleary eyes.

"We're back, Sammy," Dean informed him. "Ready for that ice cream now?"

Sam shot up in the seat, fully awake. "Yeah!"

They sat on a bench in the park across the street, Sam happily slurping away at his ice cream and getting it all over his face. Dean thought back to childhood summers when they'd done the same—back when all they had to worry about was trying to make new friends at a new school, or what Dad would say when he found the ketchup on the floor in the back seat. For a moment, he was glad Sam could recapture some of that innocence and just enjoy ice cream and a sunny day.

Sam didn't even have to turn on the puppy-dog eyes when he asked if they could play in the park a little bit before they went home. He wanted to play catch, so they got the tennis ball Cas had bought him out of the car and found a grassy spot to toss it back and forth. More accurately, Sam would lob it in Dean's general direction, then miss spectacularly when Dean tossed it back and go running after it. Maybe he should look into getting him a soccer ball—that might be easier for his uncoordinated little brother to catch. Scratch that, they were fixing this tonight—no need to be planning for Tiny Sam's future.

Sam hurled the ball about four feet to the left of Dean with a surprising amount of power, and it sailed past him and rolled to a stop by the bench they'd left—now occupied by a young woman reading a newspaper. She folded up her paper and picked up the ball, holding it out with a friendly smile.

Sam, who'd been running to get it, stopped when she picked it up. She stood and started walking toward them, and Sam wrapped his arm around Dean's leg. "Dean, dat lady has my ball," he whispered.

Dean smiled at the woman and looked down at Sam. "I think she's gonna give it back, Sammy."

Sam stuck his thumb in his mouth in response. The woman crouched down in front of Sam and offered him the ball with a smile. "Hi," she said. "Is this yours?"

Sam hesitated and looked up at Dean, who nodded. "Uh huh," Sam said shyly. He took his thumb out of his mouth to accept the ball. "Fank you for giving it back."

"You're welcome, sweetie," she said. He tucked the ball into his elbow and stuck his thumb back in his mouth. "He is just precious," she said, standing up to address Dean. "Is he yours?"

There wasn't a single truthful answer to that question that wouldn't come off as complicated and/or crazy, so Dean just smiled and said "yeah." He stuck out a hand. "He's Sammy, I'm Dean."

"Chrissy," she said, taking his hand.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Dean decided they needed to go and meet Cas if they were going to have this ready to go at sunset. "Dude," he said to Sam as they drove away. "If only I'd been into girls last time you were this age. You're seriously a chick magnet, man."

"I was unaware that griffin talons were so expensive," Cas said. He and Dean were setting up the ingredients for the spell at the entrance to the bunker garage, where the setting sun would be visible through the trees shortly. Sam was climbing on the cars.

"Is that why you bought a whole one?" Dean asked, pulling out a mortar and pestle. "We need the thing powdered, man."

"The charge for grinding it was significantly more," Cas explained. "As it stands, I believe I committed credit card fraud in acquiring this one."

Dean chuckled. "Well, you did say you wanted to be a hunter." He grunted with the effort of grinding the talon. "I can see why there's an extra charge—this thing is sturdy! There's no way I'm getting this powdered by sunset."

"Allow me," Cas said. He took the talon, and with a swift tightening of his fingers, crushed it in his palm before dusting the powder off into a bowl.

"Nice. Okay, I think we're ready." He looked over to where Sam was sliding off the hood of a car. "Keep an eye on him, will you? The timing on this thing is pretty precise, and I'm not supposed to stop once I start the incantation."

"What should I do with him?" Dean tried not to smile at the concern in Cas's voice.

"Just keep him over there," he said, waving toward the cars. "Take him inside to play, talk about the Ninja Turtles or something."

"Very well," Cas said, looking not at all sure about the idea.

Once Dean was sure he wouldn't be interrupted, he glanced down at his watch and began the ritual. There were a lot of steps, but he'd written them all out—in order and in English—and kept everything in easy reach. Inwardly, he congratulated himself on his perfect timing as the sun hit the horizon and he started the incantation. Twelve lines of Latin later and he was done. Green sparks shot up out of the bowl before quickly going silent, the mixture sitting and doing a perfectly innocent imitation of grape Kool-Aid. Dean covered it tightly and carefully carried it to the nearest lab. Now all he had to do was wait.

Heading back to the garage, he found Cas still there. "Where's Sam?"

"I am not sure," Cas said, peering into the cab of a nearby car.

"What?!"

"He is here somewhere," Cas assured him. "We are playing hide and seek."

Dean closed his eyes and exhaled. "Probably should have led with that."

"Sorry."

"Sammy! Come on out, buddy! It's time for dinner!" Dean called.

A little head popped up like a prairie dog from behind the steering wheel of the Impala. "Okay!"

Not long after he put Sam to bed, Dean was ready to go ahead and crash himself. Keeping up with the little guy was exhausting, and all the late-night research hadn't been helping. After showing Cas where they kept the charger for the iPad (looked like another night of Ninja Turtles was in order), he called it a night, easing under the covers so as not to wake the sleeping toddler.

He came awake a few hours later, big-brother senses on high alert, to the sound of Sam urgently saying his name. "Dean! Dean! No," Sam muttered, tossing restlessly from side to side.

"Sammy?" Dean said, reaching out an arm to still him.

"Dean, no! Stop it! NO!" Sam screamed.

"Hey, it's okay, Sammy, it's okay." Dean sat up, putting his hands on Sam's little shoulders, and Sam sat up like a shot, panting raggedly.

"Dean," he whimpered, then reached out and started scrabbling wildly at the front of Dean's shirt.

"Sammy, what are you…" Dean reached over and turned on the lamp. In the light he could see tears pouring down Sam's cheeks, his little face twisted in misery. "Sammy, what's wrong?"

With the light on, Sam found the hem of Dean's t-shirt and yanked it up, pawing frantically at his chest and stomach. Then he turned a tear-stained face up towards Dean's, one of his hands resting on Dean's cheek just below his eye and stared at him intently.

"Sammy, what's wrong?" Dean repeated gently. "Did you have another nightmare?" Sam's lip quivered and he gave a small nod. Whatever this one was, it must have been bad. "What happened?"

Sam sniffed and leaned into Dean's chest, clenching his fingers tightly in his shirt. "Dere was a man. A little, mean man, an' he had a knife wif teef, an' he…" A sob escaped from his throat. "He killed you, Dee," Sam whispered. "I tried to save you, but you…you died." He sniffled miserably and burrowed deeper into Dean's chest. "Nen you turned into a monster," he finished quietly.

Dean swallowed down a catch in his throat and cradled Sam's head to his chest. "It's okay, Sammy," he whispered.

"No, it's not!" Sam wailed, pushing to get away from him.

Dean grimaced, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, loosened his grip on Sam. Was Sam afraid of him now? Afraid of the demon he'd seen his brother become? He wouldn't blame him in the least if he was—sometimes he was still surprised 'grown up' Sam had accepted him back so easily. "Sammy…"

"It's not okay," Sam insisted tearfully. He moved back, but he didn't go far—just enough to get a good look at him. He ran a hand carefully over Dean's midsection again, like he was having trouble believing he was whole. "It was de worstest fing dat ever happened. I don' want you to die, Dee," Sam choked, falling forward to wrap his arms around his waist. "Please don' die," he whispered before bursting into tears again.

Dean hugged his little brother tightly to his chest. "I won't Sammy. I'm right here, buddy, I'm okay. I promise." Sam whimpered and Dean kissed the top of his head. "Hey, listen," he pulled Sam up until his head rested over Dean's heart. "You hear that? Hear that heartbeat?" Sam sniffed and nodded. "I'm here, Sammy. I'm still alive. You didn't lose me, little brother." You saved me, he wanted to add. I'm only here because of you.

He rocked his little brother and held him tightly, continuing to whisper reassurances, but Sam was inconsolable. He just increased his grip on Dean, his quiet crying broken by the occasional whisper begging him not to die. Sam stayed securely in Dean's arms, head pressed firmly over his heart, and by the time he cried himself back to sleep, Dean had shed a few silent tears of his own.

Instead of rolling around in his sleep like he usually did, Sam stayed resolutely snuggled against Dean's heart all night, little fists clenched in a death-grip on his shirt. When Dean woke up the next morning, it was almost eight o'clock, and he was surprised to find Sam still asleep. "Hey, Sammy," he said softly, wrapping his hands around Sam's little ones and easing them off his shirt so he could sit up. "Wake up, buddy."

Sam scrunched up his face and shifted, sleeping on. "Time to get up, Sammy, come on," Dean encouraged, rubbing Sam's shoulder. Sam grunted and cracked his eyes open, blinking up at Dean. Dean smiled. "Mornin', sunshine. You doing alright?" he asked, hoping the nightmare of last night was forgotten.

"Uh huh," Sam replied, making no move to get up.

Dean swung his feet out of bed. "You ready for some breakfast?"

"Okay," Sam said, surprising Dean by not jumping up and running to the kitchen. Instead, he held up his arms for Dean to pick him up.

Dean scooped him up, and Sam nuzzled his head into Dean's neck sleepily as he carried him to the kitchen. "You want waffles this morning?" Dean asked.

"I like waffles."

"Okay, then." He moved to sit Sam down at the table, but Sam clung to his neck. "C'mon, Sammy, let go so I can make breakfast."

"Nn-nn," Sam grunted, tightening his grip.

Dean sighed, then let go. Sam clung on to him like a baby monkey, legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his neck. "What, you're just gonna hang on like this while I cook?"

"Uh huh," Sam said.

"Alright," Dean sighed. Apparently the nightmare was hanging around. "But if you fall off in the batter, you're going in the waffle iron," he teased, getting a soft giggle out of Sam.

After breakfast, it took a little convincing to get Sam to let him out of his sight long enough to take a shower. He left him with Cas, and when he came back, Sam was sitting next to his untouched box of toys, looking up seriously at Cas who sat awkwardly cross-legged beside him. Dean paused before coming all the way into the room.

"Cassy-ell, 'sides your 'visible wings, do angels have special powers?" Sam asked solemnly.

"Yes," Cas told him. "I can make people better when they are hurt, and I am able to…ah…destroy demons inside of people. I can also hear other angels around the world."

Sam nodded. "Dose are good powers," he said. "Can you use dem to take care of Dean?"

Cas looked confused. "Well, as much as I can, I do already…" Sam blinked up at him earnestly. "Of course, Sam," he added. "I will."

"You hafta take good care of him," Sam insisted. "An' make sure nobody hurts him."

"I will, of course. Sam, why are you asking me this?"

"I am still little, so somebody big hasta help me to take care of him," Sam said gravely. "I don' want anybody to hurt Dean."

"Always looking out for me, aren't you, Sammy?" Dean smiled to himself. He backed around a corner then re-entered the library, walking loud enough to make himself heard. "Hey guys," he said as Sam jumped up and ran to him. "I was thinking we should go out and do something today. We've been working too hard lately." It was true, and now that the cure for Sam was taken care of, they could relax a little. More than anything though, he thought Sam needed something fun to do to take his mind off of his nightmare.

"Can we go to de park?" Sam asked.

"We can do that, sure. I was thinking maybe we could go to the zoo," Dean suggested. That wouldn't usually be his first suggestion for a good time, but as a kid Sam had always loved the zoo.

Sam's eyes widened eagerly. "Yeah!" he said, clapping his hands. "Can we see de pengwings?"

"The what, now?" Dean asked, knowing full well that Sam was trying to say 'penguins'.

"De pengwings," Sam repeated. Dean shrugged theatrically. Sam sighed. "Dey're birds," he explained. "Dey live in de snow, an' dey swim," he added, making a gliding gesture with his hand.

Dean scoffed. "Birds don't swim."

Cas opened his mouth to protest, closing it when Dean shook his head. He looked puzzled before the recognition hit that this was teasing.

"Pengwings do!" Sam contended.

"I don't know, Sammy…"

"Dey do! An' dey go like dis." He flapped his arms like little wings and sort of…waddled in a circle.

Dean snorted in surprise and laughed out loud.

"Stop being mean, Dean!" Sam scowled.

"I'm not being mean, Sammy," Dean said, still chuckling.

"You're laughing at me."

"Well, yeah, 'cause you were going like this." Dean mimicked Sam's penguin walk and Sam giggled before remembering he was trying to be mad at Dean and schooled his face into a pout. Dean huffed a fond laugh and scooped Sam up, ruffling his hair. "I'm just teasing you, Sammy. I'm sorry. Let's go get you dressed and then we'll go see the penguins."

"Okay!" Sam agreed happily. "Do you wanna come, Cassy-ell?" he asked. "You can come an' see de pengwings wif us!"

Cas considered. "I have never been to a zoo before," he said at last. "I think I would like to come see the penguins with you."

Sam sat close to Dean the whole way there, saying very little. He became a little more animated when they reached the zoo, though he clung tightly to Dean's hand or leg until Dean hoisted him up onto his shoulders. He stretched up to scan the crowd. "Which way to de pengwings, Dean?"

"I think they're this way," Dean said, starting to walk. "Seriously, man, what's with the sudden obsession with penguins?"

"We go see de pengwings first," Sam declared. "Den we'll show Cassy-ell de house wif de snakes."

"There is a house of snakes?" Cas asked, sounding mildly alarmed.

"It's…no, it's fine," Dean assured him. "They're supposed to be there. It's a climate control thing."

Sam rested his hands on Dean's hair as they walked, humming quietly to himself. "Dean, is he alright?" Castiel asked quietly, nodding up at Sam. "He appears to be rather more subdued today than usual."

"He's okay," Dean answered. "He just…He had this nightmare last night and it's still kind of freaking him out, I think."

"He has not reacted this way to any of his other nightmares."

"Yeah, I don't know, man," Dean sighed. "Last night was different. He dreamed about when Metatron killed me, and nothing I could do would calm him down. He's been all clingy like this since then."

Cas nodded. "I see. That would explain it, then."

"It would?"

"Of course. Not comprehending the memories he is seeing allows him not to dwell on them later, but a great trauma like that? It makes sense that he would react that way."

"Okay, the trauma thing I get, but why this one? You want to talk about trauma, why not react like this to the Hell dreams?"

Cas looked at him pointedly. "Would you consider your time in Hell more traumatic than any of the times you have lost Sam?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Does it still surprise you, then, that—child or not—he feels the same way?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply and closed it again. A small smile quirked up one corner of his mouth, and he rubbed fondly at one of the legs Sam dangled over his chest. "No, not really."

A tiny hand reached down to pat his as it rested on Sam's knee. "Are you okay, Dean?"

"I'm okay, Sammy," he said, leaning his head back into Sam's stomach to meet the hazel eyes staring down at him. "How you doing up there?"

Sam nodded. "Good. Are we almos' dere?"

"I believe so," Cas replied, pointing ahead.

Sam's eyes followed Cas's finger and he let out an excited gasp. "Dean! It's de pengwings!" He slapped his hands enthusiastically up and down on Dean's head.

"Ow! Okay, getting down now." Dean lowered Sam to the ground in front of the penguin enclosure and he rushed forward, pressing his hands against the glass eagerly. From where he stood, the glass revealed the underwater portion of the cage, and at that moment a penguin dove into the water, gliding straight at Sam and banking away just before it hit the wall.

Sam shrieked with delight and clapped his hands. "Look, Dean, look! Didja see it, Dean? Didja see?!" he squealed.

"I saw it, Sammy," Dean grinned. "That was cool." Sam eagerly turned back to the water, looking for more penguins, and Dean's smile widened. No matter how old they got, the big brother in him never tired of seeing Sam happy…though what with the Mark and everything, sometimes it felt like it had been a while. So he was loving this, and the fact that it could be over something as innocent as a penguin? Well, that was awesome.

Once it seemed the penguins were through with the water, Sam talked Dean into lifting him up to sit on the wall. He sat with his little hands on the arm Dean wrapped securely around him, swinging his feet happily over the enclosure, apparently fascinated with the little birds waddling and sliding around on the ice.

He whined in protest when Dean started to pull him down, hooking his feet under the ledge in an effort to stay put. "I wanna watch de pengwings!"

"C'mon, Sammy, it's been nearly half an hour. I thought you wanted to show Cas the snake house?"

Sam pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah. Okay." He allowed Dean to pull him from the wall, wrapping himself around Dean's torso before he could be lowered to the ground. "Le's go see de snakes. Dey have alligators dere too!" he informed Cas.

They spent some time in the reptile house and then wandered for a while—Sam enjoyed the monkeys, giraffes and elephants, and Castiel, for reasons unexplained, found the llamas as enthralling as Sam had the penguins and had to be dragged away. At the mountain goat exhibit, he told the story of humans learning about coffee from watching the goats, which Sam found absolutely hysterical and giggled about all the way to the food court. (Dean couldn't quite wrap his head around that one, and could only guess that Sam was imagining goats sitting around with coffee mugs.)

Dean got the feeling his shoulders were going to be sore tomorrow, but Sam was enjoying the proximity and the view—and while this clingy version of his little brother probably wouldn't have wandered too far, the weekend crowd was big enough that Dean preferred to keep him close anyway. Sam was quiet most of the way back to the parking lot, leaning on Dean's head and occasionally tapping his fingers pensively in Dean's hair. Dean could just imagine the thoughtful look on his face, and he wondered what sort of things a three year-old thought deeply about.

As they reached the gate, Dean felt something cool and damp in his hair. "Whatcha doing up there, Sammy?" he asked, hitching one shoulder slightly when he got no response.

"He seems to have fallen asleep," Cas informed him. A smile played behind his words. "I believe he is drooling in your hair."

"What?" Dean reached up a hand instinctively, catching himself before he would have smacked Sam in the face. "Dude, that's gross," he sighed.

"Is it normal for small children to sleep this much?" Cas wondered. "Sam never seemed to require this much sleep as an adult."

"Yeah, it's normal," Dean replied absently, half his mind on easing Sam off his shoulders and into the car without waking him. "Besides, have you seen how much energy he has? Gotta get it from somewhere."

Dean managed to transport Sam all the way from the zoo parking lot back to his room without disturbing him, a feat he took a modest amount of pride in and felt earned him a glass of afternoon whiskey. He sat back in the most comfortable chair in the library to enjoy his drink and the chance to be still for a while. Sam's phone ringing on the table across from him elicited a growl, but it faded as he recognized the caller.

"Jodie! Hey, how's it going?"

"Dean? Hey! Um, pretty good," she replied, sounding slightly confused.

Dean smiled. "Don't worry, you did call Sam's phone."

"Oh. Okay. Not that I wouldn't want to talk to you," she added.

"No, it's cool," Dean chuckled. "He can't come to the phone right now, so apparently, I'm his secretary. What's up?"

"Things have been pretty quiet on the monster front, so we're good there," Jodie said. "I was calling about some stuff of Bobby's Sam asked me to find. Crazy old drunk had stuff hidden all over the place," she said with a fond laugh.

"Let me guess, some kind of demon lore?"

"Nothing gets by you, does it?"

Dean shook his head with a smile. He marveled sometimes that the kid still had hope after all they'd been through. "I'll let him know."

"Thanks. You boys okay?" she asked.

Dean laughed at that. "Well, depends how you define 'okay', but yeah, we're making it."

"Uh huh," Jodie sounded suspicious. "Let me talk to Sam."

"Yeah, about that…"

"Dean," Jodie warned.

"It's fine, really," Dean assured her. Her silence demanded that he elaborate and he sighed. "Okay, so, we got on the wrong side of this witch, alright? Sam got hit with a curse, and he's…" Dean paused. Once he was back to normal, Sam was probably going to be royally embarrassed over this whole thing. He didn't have the heart right now to make it worse. "He honestly can't come to the phone," he finally said. "He's gonna be fine," he rushed to add. "We've already got the counter-curse, but it takes a couple days to put together. Call back on, like, Tuesday, and he'll be totally fine, I swear."

Jodie was silent for a long moment. "You're sure?" she said at last.

"Completely," Dean lied. He was about eighty percent sure it was going to work, but Jodie didn't need to know that.

"Alright," she sighed, though she didn't sound happy about it. "Call me if you need anything. Anything, you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Don't get smart with me. And don't think I won't call back on Tuesday either."

"I'd be hurt if you didn't," Dean said sweetly.

Jodie grumbled something fond and insulting before hanging up.

Castiel returned later from wherever he'd wandered off to, accepting Dean's invitation to join him for a drink. They talked for a little while about what he'd been doing since Hannah's departure, and his increasingly fruitless search for the remains of his grace. The conversation ended abruptly with the sound of Sam calling Dean's name from what sounded like the hallway.

"Sammy?" Dean craned his neck to see into the hall.

"Dean!" Sam shouted and came barreling into the room. Before Dean had time to do more than set his glass down, Sam was airborne, and a flying projectile of little brother was landing squarely on his gut, knocking the wind out of him with a loud grunt.

"Sam?" Dean coughed. Sam wriggled his arms around Dean's torso and lay his head on his chest, bright hazel eyes blinking up at him worriedly. "What's the matter? You have a bad dream?"

Sam shook his head vigorously, curls bouncing back and forth, and Dean sighed in relief. So far, nap time had been bad memory-free, and he was glad the kid could have at least that. "So what happened?" he asked.

"I woked up and you weren't dere!" Sam replied accusingly. "An' I couldn' find you an' I got scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Cause I couldn' find you!" Sam repeated emphatically.

"Dude, you're always by yourself when you wake up from your nap."

"I know, but…" Sam trailed off sadly.

Right. He was still afraid something was going to happen to Dean if he quit watching him. Dean smiled down at him warmly, ruffling his hair once. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, Sammy. But don't worry, man, I didn't go anywhere. I just went to the library."

"You went all de way to de liberry?!" Sam gasped, horrified.

"What? No, man, this room!" Dean pointed at the floor. "This is the library. I just came in here, I didn't go anywhere."

Sam gave him a look that Dean could have sworn he shouldn't have had down for another twenty years. "De liberry is somewhere, Dean," he said coldly.

"I…" The look intensified, and Dean thought he might have backed up if he wasn't sitting down. "Dude, have you seen this face?" he asked, turning to Cas who seemed to be quite amused at the way things were unfolding.

"In fairness, Sam is correct," Cas said. "This room is, in fact, 'somewhere'."

Sam crossed his arms and nodded fiercely. Dean gaped. "Traitor," he growled at the angel. "Don't you side with him."

Cas smirked but said nothing.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Dean said, and he meant it. He could never get too mad at Sam when he got protective—and while the protectiveness manifesting as clinginess was a little irritating, it was also kind of adorable. "Make it up to you with a snack?" Dean offered.

It was a sign of how deeply this fear had affected Sam that he wasn't immediately all smiles again at the prospect of food. "Okay," he said at last. "But I want a cookie."

"I think maybe you can have two," Dean allowed.

That got the smile he was looking for.

Dinner that night was pizza. Dean had completely forgotten that until he was about twelve, Sam had eaten his pizza by meticulously picking off the toppings and eating them one by one, followed by what was left of the cheese, and then finally the stripped and sad-looking crust. It was oddly entertaining to watch. Cas seemed to find this behavior puzzling, and Dean's gaze bounced between the two of them with great amusement. Sam was oblivious to their attention. "Dean?" he asked, picking off an olive and studying it before nibbling on it thoughtfully. "Do you fink dey feed pizza to de turtles at de zoo?"

Dean chuckled. "I think only Ninja Turtles eat pizza."

"And dose were not Ninja Turtles?" Sam asked.

"What do you think?"

Sam considered, eating a slice of pepperoni as he did so. "I don' fink so," he decided. "Dey walked really slow, an' you hafta be fast to be a ninja, right?"

"You're right there," Dean agreed.

"And if the Ninja Turtles were confined to a cage, they would be unable to do battle with Shredder and the Foot Clan," Cas added, making Dean choke on his beer.

"Dat's right," Sam agreed. "So, if de zoo turtles are jus' regular turtles, what do dey eat?"

Dean shrugged. "Leaves and bugs and crap."

"Yuck." Sam made a face. "Nex' time we go, can we take dem some pizza?"

"I don't think the people who work at the zoo would let us."

"We could disguise it wif bugs," Sam suggested. "An' unner-neaf would be yummy pizza."

Sam continued coming up with increasingly elaborate plans to smuggle pizza into the zoo until it was time for bed. With the incident after nap time in mind, Dean doubted he'd get away with putting Sam in bed and leaving him there, and he was right. After settling Sam on his side of the bed, he sat part way up and watched Dean with anxious eyes as he rose from the bed.

"Don't worry, Sammy," Dean assured him. "I'm just getting this," he grabbed his laptop before sitting back down next to Sam on his side of the bed. "Not going anywhere."

Sam laid back down. "Will you stay where I can see you?" he asked timidly.

"Right here," Dean promised, reaching across him to turn off the lamp. "Go on to sleep, buddy."

"'Kay," Sam said. He snuggled down into the bed, but kept his eyes on Dean until his eyelids started to droop. Every so often they would snap back open again as he fought sleep, and once his eyes found Dean, they would start drifting closed again. Dean chuckled quietly and ruffled his hair, and he was asleep soon after.

As Dean was getting ready to turn in a couple of hours later, Sam started whimpering softly. "Mmm!" he whined, kicking out with his feet.

Dean reached out a hand and laid it on his back. "It's okay, Sammy," he whispered.

"No," Sam muttered, eyes still closed. "No, Dean, I don' wanna shoot Daddy."

"You don't have to, it's okay," Dean soothed, rubbing slow circles on his back. "It'll be okay, Sammy."

Sam whimpered softly once more and then was quiet again. Dean rubbed his back a little longer, then, satisfied that he was asleep, stood to get ready for bed. That one hadn't been too bad.

He got into bed, his mind racing thinking about the curse on Sam, his dream about Metatron bringing him back around to Cain and the Mark, and it wasn't until later that he realized he had drifted off. He was stalking through the bunker, gliding on silent feet. He was hunting, Sam was running, and this time, Cain's words echoing in his ears, this time Cas wasn't there. Cas wasn't there to stop him and Sam had too much hope—too much hope that he was still salvageable, and that was going to get him killed. This time the hammer found its mark with a wet, sickening crunch of crushing bone and flesh, and, God help him, Dean laughed. He laughed as the hammer swung again and again and he couldn't stop. And somewhere deep and dark and locked inside where he was still Dean, he was screaming because that was his baby brother spattered across the wall, and Dean had done that, and he hadn't saved him, and he screamed. He kept screaming as hands surrounded and grabbed him, and suddenly there were just two of them, and they were tiny and shaking and a little voice was pleading, "Wake up, Dean, wake up!"

He shot upright, eyes wide and heart hammering, panting like he'd just run a marathon. Sam was sitting beside him, frightened eyes blinking up at him in the semi-darkness. "Are you okay, Dean?" he whispered.

"Sammy," Dean breathed, and he grabbed him and pulled him fiercely into his chest, burying his face in his hair. "You're okay," he whispered, because he was. He was cursed and tiny and freaked the hell out because his big brother had just woken up next to him screaming, but he was there and he was alive and Dean held on to him tightly, letting the feeling of the little heart thumping against his own and the sound of Sam's breathing drown out the bloody squelch of broken skull playing in his head. Sam was fine, Sam was here, and Dean didn't kill him. He wasn't going to kill him. "You're okay," he repeated.

"I'm okay, but, Dean, you're squishing me," Sam's muffled voice said from somewhere near his armpit.

"Sorry, buddy," Dean whispered roughly, not quite trusting his voice. He loosened his grip but couldn't let go all the way. Not yet.

Sam settled into a more comfortable position in Dean's lap and wrapped his arms around Dean's chest. "Are you alright, Dee? What happened?"

"I'm okay," Dean said, mostly steadily, and in another minute or so it would be true. "Sorry."

"Did you have a bad dream?" Sam asked sympathetically.

"Yeah."

Sam rubbed his hands up and down Dean's back. "Dat's okay," he said. "Grown-ups can have bad dreams too," he assured him, and Dean almost laughed. In any other circumstance, this would have bordered on humiliating, and here his three year-old brother was telling him not to be embarrassed. Kid knew him too well.

"Yeah, we can," Dean agreed. His breathing slowing down and his heart rate having approached something closer to normal, he lay back down, tugging Sam gently with him. "Sorry, buddy," he apologized again. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

"It's okay," Sam assured him, snuggling into his chest and patting Dean's arm. "How comes you said I was okay an' not you?" he asked. "Was I in your bad dream?"

Dean swallowed. He should've known better than to think that would just slip by him. How to even begin to touch on that one? "Um, yeah…something bad happened to you in my dream, so I was glad to see you were okay when I woke up."

"Oh." Sam considered this, then wriggled in his arms until Dean loosened his grip. He began to sit up as Sam started moving away, but Sam pushed his shoulder down. "Stay dere," he ordered. Curious, Dean obeyed. Sam started crawling up the bed. "You're silly, Dean," he said as he moved. "Nuffing bad will happen to me," he declared as he reached the pillows. "You will not let it," he said confidently, and something warm uncurled slowly in Dean's chest. Sam paused in his shuffling and rested a hand on Dean's forehead. "I will not let anyfing bad happen to you eever," he told him seriously.

"I know," Dean whispered. He could feel Sam shifting to sit up by his head. "What are you—"

"I said stay dere," Sam repeated imperiously. He sat up on the pillow, legs laying along one side of Dean's head. Little fingers began carding gently through Dean's hair. "It's okay, Dean," Sam said softly. "Don' be scared. Everyfing will be okay."

Dean huffed a quiet laugh, and was about to pull Sam back down and tell him to go back to sleep, but that little voice was soft and soothing, those tiny fingers in his hair were oddly comforting, and the made-up tune he started to hum was quiet and sweet, and Dean's eyes were sliding shut before he could order them to do otherwise.

He woke the next morning surprised he'd actually fallen asleep. Since his last words with Cain, dreams about Sam dying at his hands were popping up more frequently—the methods changed, though his twisted brain seemed to enjoy revisiting the hallways and the hammer. Usually after those dreams he would get up, wander, brood and drink, afraid of what would happen if he shut his eyes again. This was the first time he'd managed to fall asleep again—never mind that he'd slept well!

"You are something else, kid," he chuckled softly, addressing the little brother who had fallen asleep after he did and was currently wrapped like a cat around his head, snoring softly in one ear with one of his feet looped under Dean's chin.

Dean extracted himself from the tangle of baby brother and sat up, causing Sam to roll down the pillow and land face-down in the mattress. "Mmf," Sam grunted.

"Mornin', Sammy," Dean said, chuckling again at the way Sam scrunched his face up before opening his eyes.

Sam blinked away sleepiness and smiled when his eyes found his big brother. "Hi, Dean," he said brightly. "Is it time for breakfis?"

Dean shook his head with a laugh. Looked like the kid was back to normal. "You've got a one-track mind, you know that, kiddo? No wonder you grow up to be a sasquatch." He grabbed Sam up and flipped him over, making sure his grip around Sam's middle was secure. "C'mon."

Sam laughed as he swayed upside down, feet dangling in front of his face. In the kitchen Dean righted him and plopped him into a chair, then poured out Lucky Charms for the two of them. Cas joined them not long after, though he didn't eat. "Hey, Cas, keep him busy while I go get a shower, would you?" Dean asked half an hour later. For all that Sam was always excited to eat, he was easily distracted and could take forever to finish a meal.

When he returned to the kitchen, it was just in time to see Sam flinging a spoonful of milk and cereal in the direction of the fridge. "What the…?" Dean gaped. The floor between the table and fridge was littered with bits of cereal and splashes of milk, and several marshmallows were stuck to the fridge door.

"Oops," Sam said, catching sight of Dean's face and dropping his spoon back into the bowl.

"Oops?" Dean repeated. "Uh-uh, Sammy, this is not 'oops'. You don't throw food!"

"Sorry," Sam replied.

"Dang right, you are," Dean growled. "Corner," he said, pointing to a corner of the kitchen. It wasn't often that Sam had needed actual punishment growing up, but when Dean had had to do it, he'd always gone with a time out. (Dad had always gone with a spanking before they got too big for it—it was over quicker, but Dean had never been able to bring himself to hit the kid when discipline was left up to him.) "Now," he added.

Sam's face fell. "But Cassy-ell started it!" he whined.

"No, he didn't," Dean said, rolling his eyes. "Get over there."

"I did," Cas interrupted.

That caught Dean by surprise. "What?"

"Sam is correct," Cas said. "I did initiate it."

"See, Dean?" Sam said earnestly. "I wasn' lying."

Dean took a second to process. "No, you weren't, Sammy. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said you were." Sam looked appeased. "You're still getting a time out, though," he added.

"But—" Sam protested.

"No, don't give me those eyes, man," Dean warned. "You know better than this," he said, gesturing at the mess on the floor.

"But Cassy-ell—"

"Oh, Castiel's getting a time out too," he assured him. He pointed at the corner again. Sam stuck out his lower lip in a pout, but seemed mollified with the equal distribution of punishment. He turned and marched to the corner Dean had indicated, and with a dramatic sigh, sat down facing the wall.

Dean had to smile at the theatrics of it, then turned around and raised an eyebrow at Cas.

"We were attempting to stick the marshmallows to the fridge," Cas seemed to feel the need to explain. "You said to keep him busy…"

"I don't want to know how you got there," Dean sighed. He nodded to another corner. "Go on."

Cas raised surprised eyebrow. "Dean, I am an angel of the Lord," he began.

Dean snorted. "An angel of the Lord who just started a freaking food fight with a three year-old. You can get in the corner or you can have your time out in a circle of Holy Fire. Your choice."

Cas opened his mouth to argue, seemed to think better of it, and stalked to the indicated corner. "You're going all in, man. You gotta face the wall," Dean ordered. Cas shot him a mutinous glare, but did as he was told.

Dean snorted softly to himself, then began to clean up the mess. Truthfully, he felt kind of ridiculous giving Cas a time out—but the angel had started it, and if he hadn't been fair about it, Sam would have been a lot tougher to handle. He knew from experience that a ruffled angel was much easier to placate than a three year-old with an offended sense of justice.

"Dean, how long do I hafta sit in de corner?" Sam asked, still facing the wall.

"No talking during time out, Sammy," Dean reminded him.

"I'm not talking, I'm jus' wondering how long I'm 'posed to sit here," Sam said.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Until I'm done cleaning this up and I say you can turn around. Now, ssh."

When he was done, Dean stood back and eyed the kitchen to make sure he hadn't missed anything, and he couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face at the sight of Sam and Cas, Batman pajamas and trench coat facing the wall. "Alright, guys, time out's over."

Sam sprang to his feet and turned before Cas had finished standing. "I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said sincerely. He wrapped his little arms around Dean's legs and hugged his knees. "Are you still mad?" he asked carefully.

Dean reached down to ruffle his hair. "It's okay. I'm not mad," he assured him, and Sam smiled. "But it's not gonna happen again, right?" Dean asked, raising a warning eyebrow.

"Uh-uh," Sam agreed, shaking his head quickly. "I will not frow my food ever, ever again," he promised. "Even if Cassy-ell does it first."

The rest of what was hopefully going to be Sam's last full day as a toddler was fairly low-key. Sam talked Dean and Cas into playing with his toys with him for a while—Sam got Raphael, of course, while Dean was assigned Darth Vader, and Castiel was given a toy sheep and the dinosaur and informed that their names were Laser Dragon and Elliot. (Laser Dragon was the sheep.) This was followed by an ill-advised game of hide and seek that Dean regretted about two seconds after Sam ran off to hide. After combing the bunker for nearly half an hour before finding him behind the targets in the shooting range, further rounds were restricted to the garage.

After lunch and a short nap, Dean remembered Sam's request of the day before and decided they should go to the park. They walked, enjoyed the sun, tossed the tennis ball around some and played on the swings. When they reached the pond, Cas pulled out the remains of an almost-stale loaf of bread to feed the ducks and Sam was over the moon.

"What made you think to bring that?" Dean asked.

Cas shrugged and scattered a handful of crumbs across the water. "I never understood the point of parks before I was human," he said. "In my…wanderings, I found parks to be agreeable places not only to hide among the other humans, but to think and rest as well. It was soothing to be among people enjoying such innocent things, and I found feeding the ducks to be relaxing."

"Huh." Dean snagged Sam's collar and tugged him back from the edge of the pond. "Not so close, Sammy."

"But I can't frow de bread far enough for de ducks to reach," Sam complained.

"Give it a minute, and they'll come over here once they know you have food," Dean said.

"Hey ducks!" Sam called, waving a hand at the approaching waterfowl. "We have food for you! Come over here!"

Dean heard a short giggle and an 'aawww' from two shapely female joggers passing behind them and shook his head with a groan. He was totally not taking advantage of the whole 'single dad' vibe. He thought back to what Cas had just said. "You know, I see it, man," he agreed. "I couldn't even tell you the last time I did something normal like this. You get caught up in the hunting…" Their part of the world was awfully dark, and he forgot sometimes that there was a lot of light out there too. "Back, Sammy," he reminded Sam, grabbing his collar again. The ducks were more than close enough by now.

"Hey, Dean, look. Dere's a plees-man," Sam said, pointing at a cop sitting on a bench on the other side of the pond. "Is he here to take de ducks home? I want to feed dem some more."

"What?"

"I believe these ducks live here, Sam," Cas said. "They no doubt nest among those reeds there. There would be no need for them to make such a perilous journey when there is adequate housing here."

"Oh. Okay. What's 'adekwit' mean?"

"It means 'good enough'," Dean explained. He arched an eyebrow at Cas. "What are you talking about?"

"In the children's book Make Way For Ducklings, a policeman guides the ducks across the city to the lake in the park," Cas explained.

"Your whole getting cultural references thing still kind of weirds me out," Dean said. Now that Cas mentioned it, though, he thought he remembered reading that book to Sam when they were little.

When the bread ran out, they made their way back to the front of the park. "Can I ride on your shoulders, Dee?" Sam asked, and any protests Dean had about sore shoulders melted with one blink of the puppy-dog eyes.

"Dang, kid, you need a permit for those things," he muttered. "Come on up."

They passed more joggers and an older couple with a dog that excitedly tangled its leash around Castiel's legs. "Dean!" Sam said suddenly, tapping eagerly on the top of his head. "Can I have ice cream?" he asked, pointing to a vendor up ahead with a wheeled cart and an umbrella.

"Pretty sure you just had ice cream," Dean countered.

"But dat was so many days ago!" Sam groaned, slumping melodramatically over Dean's head.

"Two days," Dean corrected. "That was two days ago."

"Dat's a lot of days to not have ice cream," Sam replied soberly.

Dean chuckled. "Really?"

"So many," Sam affirmed.

Dean shook his head. "How you were never a fat kid is beyond me, man. What about a popsicle? How's that sound?"

Sam considered. "Dat would be…adekwit," he decided, carefully sounding out the new word.

Dean gave an amused snort. "Uh huh. What kind of 'adequate' popsicle you want?"

"Purple," Sam said without hesitation.

Dean bought the popsicle, unwrapped it and handed it up to Sam. "Fanks, Dean," Sam said. A moment later the sticky treat was dangling in front of his face. "You wanna bite?"

Dean smiled, sampled the snack and handed it back up. Sam hummed happily atop Dean's shoulders, bouncing his feet in time with whatever tune was in his head and slurping cheerfully on his popsicle. "The top of my head's turning purple, isn't it?" Dean asked with a sideways look at Cas.

"You may want to take a shower when we return to the bunker," Cas allowed.

"Dean," Sam interrupted.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Can we get a puppy?"

"What?" That was random.

"Can we get a puppy?" Sam repeated patiently.

Oh, right. For years growing up, Sam had wanted a dog. Dad had always turned him down (with decreasing patience as the years went on). "What makes you think we need a puppy?" he asked.

"Well," Sam started. Dean felt a sticky splotch of popsicle drop into his hair. "Daddy always said we could not have a puppy cause dere was no room in de 'Pala. But I do not live wif Daddy any more—I live wif you, and I fink maybe you will let me have a puppy."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Dean asked with an amused chuckle.

"Yes," Sam replied simply.

"Okay, tell you what. Let's think about it for a while, and if you still want a puppy on Tuesday, we'll talk about it."

"Okay," Sam agreed, and returned to his humming and his snack.

"Dean, are you actually considering purchasing a dog?" Cas asked quietly, looking puzzled.

"What? No, man," Dean answered.

"Then why—"

"Look," Dean explained in a low voice. "If I tell him no, he's going to get upset. Come Tuesday he'll either be a grown up and won't want a dog any more, or if this doesn't work, he'll have forgotten we had this conversation anyway. You gotta pick your battles with kids, and I'm not going to be the bad guy if I don't have to."

"Ah," Cas said. "I see." He arched a studious eyebrow at Dean. "You're very good at this."

Dean snorted. "No need to sound so surprised."

Dean decided to wait until after dinner to give Sam his bath—the kid was covered in sticky, purple popsicle juice, but there was no point cleaning him off now if he was going to get messy again during supper. After eating and bathing, he surprised both Sam and Cas by announcing movie night. It came to him on a whim, but why the hell not? It could be a celebration of Sam's last night as a kid, even if he didn't know it, and it had been a while since they'd done a movie night together. Granted, the choice of movie was going to be different than their usual fare, but still…

"No," Dean said firmly, not looking up as he messed with the wires that would hook up the TV to the iPad Cas was reading from. (This tech stuff was usually Sam's job.)

"I am told it is a very popular children's movie," Cas countered.

"We may be making sacrifices here because of the whole three year-old business, but if you pull Frozen up on that thing, I will break it over the top of your head," Dean growled. He took a moment to look away from the wires and glare at the angel.

"Perhaps I should find something else."

Dean returned his gaze to the wires while Cas looked back at the screen. "I will hurt you," he warned as Cas absently started humming the first bar of 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman?'.

They finally settled on the Lego Movie. Sam crawled excitedly up into Dean's lap, Cas dimmed the lights, and Dean set the popcorn bowl on the table between the two chairs. It turned out not to be a bad call—Dean hadn't been expecting much of a kid's movie, but this one was pretty funny. Sam giggled continuously in his lap, and he even heard a chuckle or two from Cas's direction. Sam fell asleep about two-thirds in, but neither Dean nor the angel said anything, and they finished the movie.

As the credits rolled, Cas reached out to turn on the lamp. Dean looked down at Sam and rubbed a hand up and down his back as he shifted and snuggled further into Dean's chest. It was silent for a few minutes before Cas cleared his throat. "May I make an observation?" he asked tentatively.

"Sure."

"And, please, do not be angry when I say this…"

"Oh, 'cause that's a good way to start a conversation," Dean smirked.

Cas frowned and carried on. "Have you considered, perhaps, that it may in fact be kinder to leave Sam in his current state?" Dean arched an eyebrow and Cas rushed on. "Sam has spoken in the past of wishing for a normal childhood—this could be your chance to give him one."

Dean sighed as Cas watched him nervously. He'd be lying if he said that thought hadn't occurred to him too. He looked down again at his brother. Sam was curled up in a content little ball, warm and clean and smelling like baby shampoo, and just the right weight against his chest—it felt cozy, and homey, and…kind of good. He thought about Sam's happy little giggles during the movie, his delight at little things like penguins at the zoo and ducks in the park, how content he was to just be with his brother and how safe he felt—there were no monsters in Sammy's world, no demons, no deals, no end of the world. This Sammy had never been to hell or seen his brother do the same, he'd never lost his soul, or his mother, or his girlfriend, or everyone else he loved. He'd never been manipulated into drinking demon blood and starting the Apocalypse, never been possessed by angels, devils or demons, lost his mind, or held his dying brother in his arms. His world was free of blood and death and loss, and once the nightmares faded, it would stay that way. He could actually be a normal kid.

He sighed deeply and looked up, one corner of his mouth quirking up at Cas's worried expression. "Don't worry, it's fine, man," he said. "Honestly…I've thought about it."

Cas's face changed from concern to surprise. "Really?"

"Like you said, might be better for him, you know?" He dropped his head against the back of his chair with a sigh. "I just don't know." As if he sensed he was being talked about, Sam shifted restlessly in his sleep, letting out a soft moan. "Ssh, ssh," Dean soothed, gently stroking Sam's hair. "It's okay, Sammy, I gotcha." Sam stilled and nuzzled against Dean's chest with a happy sigh. Dean smiled.

"If I may point something else out," Cas said after a moment. "I have also noted a change in you since this all began."

"In me?" Dean arched a curious eyebrow.

"Yes. A…softening, if you will. The Mark's effects seem less pronounced. It brings to mind what you told me of Cain," Cas continued thoughtfully. "He was able to bring the Mark under control when he fell in love. Having someone to care for other than himself brought him closer to being human again. I don't mean to imply that you did not care for Sam before," he rushed to add, anticipating the question he saw in Dean's eyes. "Merely that, as a child, the way you care for him has shifted into something more…paternal. Already in this last week, the strength I can feel from the Mark has dimmed." He tilted his head to one side. "This might be something good for both of you."

Dean was quiet for several long minutes. To be honest, he hadn't given much thought to the Mark at all since this happened, too wrapped up in curing and caring for Sam. He'd had the one nightmare, but Sam talking about him being a demon had brought that on, and Sam been the one to bring him back down to okay afterwards. Now that he thought about it, he did feel maybe…whatever it was he felt from the Mark, he felt a little less of it. He sighed and ran his fingers thoughtfully through Sam's hair. Either choice he made, he could see the selfish side of it. Keeping Sam this way because it was good for Dean, or changing him back because Dean wanted him back…

He missed 'his' Sam like hell, but this little one…this was his brother too, and it was amazing how easily and unconsciously he'd slipped into the dual role of parent and brother like he'd never left it. If it was better for Sam, he could make that sacrifice and give his little brother the life their dad never could. The same bed every night, the same school every day, sports teams, school clubs, even that puppy if he really wanted it. He could finish college this time, find a girlfriend, get married, get a real job, have kids…That used to be all Sam wanted, and Dean could give him that. Was that still what he wanted, though?

"I can't do it, man," he said at last. "Not after…I can't make that choice for him. I mean, he'd never know it if I just left him like this, but I would. It might be better for Sam, but he should be the one to decide that, not me." If Dean decided for him, he knew that every time he looked at Sam's little face, he'd see grown-up Sam behind those eyes, wearing the same hurt, betrayed expression that had been on his face when he learned about Gadreel. And yeah, maybe it was selfish, but Dean needed Sam. His Sam.

"If the spell ends up not working tomorrow, then yeah, I will pull him out of this hunting crap and give him the best life I can. But I've gotta try," Dean finished, a tinge of a plea in his voice.

Cas nodded. "Of course," he agreed, and Dean thought he seemed pleased with the answer.

Dean nodded, and they sat in silence a few minutes longer. He finally stood, gently shifting Sam in his arms so as not to wake him. "Better get the munchkin to bed," he said. "You good in here?"

"Yes," Cas assured him.

"You're going to watch Frozen again, aren't you?" Dean sighed. Cas's lack of response was answer enough, and Dean shook his head. "Fine. But keep it down. If I hear so much as one note of 'Let It Go', no more iPad for you, and you are spending the night outside."

Dean was woken later that night by a sharp kick in the ribs. He grunted awake just in time to dodge a tiny fist to his nose. Sam was thrashing frantically in the grip of another nightmare—nearly silent this time except for the occasional soft whimper, but moving as if fighting off unseen enemies. For a fraction of a second, Dean felt a wash of guilty relief—nightmares were memories, and memories meant his Sam was still in there.

"Sammy, wake up," he said softly, placing his hands on the little shoulders. Sam kicked again. "Wake up, buddy, it's okay."

Sam gasped and blinked awake. "Dean?" he asked in a small, scared voice.

"Yeah, Sammy, I'm here." Sam sat up and threw his arms around his brother. "You have another bad dream?"

"Uh-huh," Sam nodded.

"You wanna tell me about it?" Dean offered, rubbing Sam's back. No matter what age he was, talking out nightmares always made Sam feel better.

"Dere was a bad fing," he whispered. "It lived inside me, an' it was mean an' hurted people. An' people fot it was me, but it wasn't!" he said desperately. "It was de bad fing an' I couldn't make it stop." He ended with a sniffle and buried his face in Dean's shirt.

Dean sighed. How messed up was it that Sam could dream about being possessed, and there were multiple memories he could have pulled that from? "It's okay, Sammy," Dean assured him, stroking his hair. Now he knew what all the thrashing had been about—Sam trying to retake control of his body. "It's okay," he said. "There's no bad thing living inside you."

Sam stuck out an arm and flexed his fingers, as if testing his control over his hands.

"See?" Dean asked. "Only you in there." Sam leaned back into him. "You didn't hurt anybody, and nothing bad is gonna get in and hurt you," he promised.

"Will you keep me safe?" Sam whispered.

"Don't I always?"

Sam nodded earnestly against his ribs and Dean smiled. "That's right, I do." He guided him back down to the mattress, tugging him in securely against his chest. Sam wrapped his arms around one of Dean's, and Dean could feel the tension melt out of his little body. "It's okay, Sammy," he repeated softly. "I gotcha." Sam yawned and Dean chuckled, stifling a yawn of his own. "Go on back to sleep, little brother," he said sleepily. "Everything's alright."

Dean rolled onto his side, scratching sleepily at his nose. He rubbed again when the itch persisted, coming more awake this time when it was followed by a soft giggle. He waited, then felt the tickle of what was probably a loose thread off the blanket as it slid across his nose. He grimaced theatrically, rubbing at his face while keeping his eyes shut and heard Sam giggle again behind him. Dean lay still, feeling the shift in the mattress and the soft breath near his ear as Sam leaned forward again. When he felt the soft tickle of the thread again, his hand shot up like a shark out of the ocean, trapping Sam's arm and tugging him forward and over Dean's shoulder as he let out a squawk of surprise. "Gotcha," Dean grinned, arching a victorious eyebrow. "My turn."

Before Sam could react, Dean's fingers were dancing across his belly and he laughed, squealing and squirming to get away. He managed to roll out of Dean's reach and burrowed under the covers, seeking sanctuary at the foot of the bed. "You're not getting away that easy, kiddo," Dean warned, and he pounced on the lump in the bedding. Gleeful, muffled laughter floated up from under the blanket. Dean tossed it back to reveal a red-faced, smiling Sam, last night's sleep and static from the blanket combining to create a truly magnificent halo of bed hair.

Sam giggled again. "I got you, didn' I, Dean?"

"Yeah, but I got you back." Sam squeaked and threw his arms protectively over his middle and Dean laughed. "You want some breakfast, tickle monster?"

"Yeah!" Sam agreed, and was rolling off the bed and racing to the kitchen.

They had Lucky Charms again—grown-up Sam didn't find them as exciting as the little guy did, and Dean figured they may as well finish off the box. He stared after him as Sam ran off to get dressed. Last time he'd be seeing those Batman pajamas.

"Are you alright, Dean?" Cas asked.

Dean shrugged. "You know, I think I'm gonna miss the little fella. Not enough, to, you know, not change him back," he hurried to add. "But mini-Sam's not so bad."

"It has been…one might call it pleasant, in its own way," Cas agreed. "What do you plan to do until this evening?" The counter-curse wouldn't be ready until after sundown.

Dean shrugged. "Same old stuff, I guess. Ninja Turtles, nap time, some coloring. Pants, Sam," he said as Sam returned in his t-shirt and underwear.

"Oh, yeah." Sam disappeared again.

Dean shook his head with a smile. And he'd been doing so good all week—how do you forget pants? "May make a grocery run," he continued. "What do you want for dinner, Sammy?" he asked as a fully-clothed Sam raced back into the kitchen.

Sam frowned thoughtfully. "P'sketti!" he declared at last. "Wif meatballs!"

"We can do that," Dean said, smile widening as he saw Cas mouth the word 'p'sketti' in an attempt to translate it. "But if we're doing spaghetti, I'm gonna have to go to the store."

"I wanna come!" Sam exclaimed, raising one hand and bouncing on his toes. "Can I come? Can I?"

"Yes, you can come," Dean said, and Sam clapped. "You coming too?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Cas.

"I will accept the ride into town—Hannah is sending someone I wish to speak with," he replied.

"Let's hit the road, then. Go get your shoes, Sammy."

Shopping with a three year-old took a hell of a lot longer than the quick runs Dean was used to. Sam's little legs took a while to get him anywhere, and he was forever wandering back and forth and across each aisle they walked, drawn to colorful displays and exciting things to touch. "Don't you open that ketchup, Sam," Dean warned, ignoring the huff of displeasure he got in response. He turned his attention back to the meat freezer to evaluate the ground beef. "Get back over here by the cart, Sam," he said, eyes still on the freezer. He frowned when he didn't hear a reply. "Sam?" He turned around. No little brother. "Sammy?" he called, expecting the little mop of hair to pop out from around the edge of the next aisle. His frown deepened when it didn't.

He stepped forward to scan the aisle, then backed up to check the one they'd just come down. "Sammy!" he called again, a little louder this time. He abandoned the cart and walked briskly to the end of the line of aisles, anxiety crowding out annoyance as each proved empty. He darted back the way they had come—he'd had a hard time getting Sam past the candy aisle—maybe he'd wandered back there. The only person there was a woman stocking shelves. "I'm looking for a little boy," Dean said quickly. "About this tall, have you seen him?" She shook her head and Dean rushed on before she could say more.

The store wasn't that big, where could he have gone? He swallowed hard and fiercely shoved away the thought of the human kind of evil that was more likely to be making anyone disappear around here than anything supernatural. No, the kid had just wandered off, and he was fine, and Dean was not going to lose him like this, not when he was so close to getting him back. "Sam!" he called again. How could he have gotten so far away on those tiny little legs? Okay, no, breathe, what do normal people do when their kid goes missing in a store? Front desk, make some kind of announcement, maybe lock the door…That was a thing, right? Code Adam, yeah, that sounded right.

He spun on his heel, realized he was at the complete opposite end of the store from where he needed to be, and started running. Halfway there, a voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "Attention, shoppers: Will Dean Winchester please come to the customer service desk?" The announcement began to repeat itself, and Dean rounded a corner in time to see a clerk turning off a microphone and a dejected-looking Sam sitting on top of the counter.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed. He lunged forward off the desk before Dean was close enough to catch him and was saved from taking a header by the surprisingly fast reflexes of the young man behind the counter who looped an arm around his waist.

"Sammy," Dean exhaled, skidding to a stop in front of the desk and snatching him from the clerk's grip. "You okay?" he asked, brushing his hair out of his face to meet the little hazel eyes.

Sam nodded.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Dean snapped, worry fading away now that he knew the kid was safe. "You hear me? Something could have happened to you! What were you thinking?"

Sam's already miserable face crumpled, his lower lip trembling as tears welled up in his eyes and spilled out down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Dee," he whispered.

"Aw, hey, no, don't…c'mere," he said, pulling Sam into a hug. He guided Sam's head down onto his shoulder with one hand and leaned his head to rest against Sam's hair. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he said gently, his anger dissolving as fast as it had risen. He rubbed a hand up and down Sam's back. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I was just scared, kiddo—I didn't know where you were."

"I didn' mean to run away," Sam said in a small voice against his chest. "I jus' went to put de ketchup back an' nen I couldn' see you an'…" He sniffled and Dean felt one little fist clench in his shirt. "I was scared too," Sam finished softly.

Dean kissed the top of his head lightly and ruffled his hair before nudging the little face up to look at him. "I guess we were both scared, huh?" Sam nodded. "But we're both okay now, right?"

Sam nodded again, wiping at his watery eyes. "Uh huh," he said, and when Dean flashed him an encouraging smile, he smiled back.

"Okay," Dean said warmly, patting him on the back. He hoisted him up a little higher in his arms, turning back to the clerk. "Um, thanks, man," he said awkwardly, suddenly aware that their little emotional scene had just taken place in front of a random college student.

The kid shrugged, unfazed. "No problem, dude. Found the little guy over by the laundry detergent, figured someone would be looking for him."

"Yeah, well, thanks." He smiled. "C'mon, Sammy, let's go find our food."

"Where'd it go?" Sam asked as they walked away.

"Left it by the freezer to come find you. And I think you're gonna sit in the cart with the food until we get out of here."

"So it won't get lost again?"

"Mostly so you won't get lost again," Dean said firmly. "But sure, if it makes you feel better, you can guard the food."

"Okay," Sam agreed. "Can I hold the p'sketti?"

"Sure," Dean replied. As far as he was concerned, Sam could bury himself under the groceries if he wanted—the kid wasn't getting out of Dean's sight until he was six foot four again.

"Read me a story 'fore naps, Dean?" Sam asked after lunch. Reading had always been one of Sam's favorite activities, and Dean was kind of surprised the request hadn't come up more often over the past week. Then again, from Sam's point of view, there were a lot of changes going on—he suddenly lived with his grown-up brother and not his dad, they had a home of their own, there was a Ninja Turtle and a 'garden' angel, and they actually went out and did stuff instead of sitting around motel rooms all the time—plenty to keep the little guy occupied. (Which worked out pretty well, since the only books Dean had for him were that monster's guide thing and a ratty copy of One Fish, Two Fish from Cas's box of thrift store toys.)

Dean grabbed the Dr. Seuss book and Sam hopped up on the couch and snuggled into his side. In a completely un-weird way, Dean was kind of going to miss this. Just a tiny little bit. "Alright, get comfy." He started reading, Sam making him pause occasionally to study the illustrations. By the end of the book, Sam had fallen asleep, curled up with his head resting on Dean's thigh.

"You have a soothing reading voice, Dean," Cas said from behind him, making him jump.

"Geez, warn a guy," he snapped, checking to make sure he hadn't woken Sam. "You been sitting back there long?"

"I came in when the man with the missing shoe was holding a bird."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You could have said something."

Cas shrugged. "I was enjoying listening. Though childish on the surface, the rhymes are well-structured and flow in a most agreeable aural fashion."

Dean grunted, somewhat embarrassed at having been overheard reading a children's book. "Do you think this is gonna work?" he asked after a moment.

"What?"

"This whole counter-curse thing," he said, nodding down at Sam. "I mean, what if it fixes his brain but leaves him stuck as a kid, like what happened to me? Or," he paused, shuddering slightly. "What if it turns him big but his head's still three, and I get stuck with a giant toddler who has to learn how to shave?"

"We researched this spell very carefully, Dean," Cas assured him. "Based on the curse originally placed on him, this should reverse it completely, returning him to the exact state he was in before. There is no reason for only part of it to work."

Dean nodded. He knew that. "I just don't want to screw this up any more," he said, resting one hand on Sam's head.

"This will work, Dean," Cas asserted. "Sam will be fine."

Dean grew increasingly antsy as the day wore on. The waiting was the worst part. If they could just do the spell now, so he would know…But he smiled and played with Sam and allowed himself to be drawn in an argument over whether Laser Dragon the sheep could drive the car or not. He started dinner early to give himself something productive to do with his hands.

"See?" Sam explained to Cas. "Dis is how you're 'posed to eat p'sketti." He put the end of a sauce-covered noodle in his mouth and slurped it up, the pasta whipping around and leaving a spot of sauce on his nose. "You try."

"I think it's best I don't," Castiel said. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "The last time you and I played with food, we got in trouble with Dean."

"Oh yeah," Sam said. He giggled.

Dean shook his head. "Laugh it up, shorty. I'm saving the dishes for you tonight." He looked over Sam's mostly empty plate. "You gonna eat that broccoli?"

Sam shook his head. "Uh uh," he said vehemently.

"What? Dude, you love broccoli."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Broccoli's yucky!"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Well, you'll love broccoli before too long. Eat it or you don't get a cookie." Sam grimaced, but speared the vegetables with his fork, making a new dramatic face with each bite. Dean turned to Castiel. "You know things are messed up when I'm the one making him eat vegetables."

"Cookie time!" Sam declared, dropping his fork down onto his now-empty plate.

Dean chuckled. "Alright, Cas, will you get him an Oreo? I'm gonna go get stuff set up."

"Where you going, Dean?" Sam asked.

"Remember that magic stuff we got the other day?"

"For fighting de witch?"

"Yep. I'm gonna go get ready to get it started."

Sam's eyes widened. "Can I help? I wanna see de magic!"

"Oh, you're not gonna miss this," he assured him. "Hang here with Cas and I'll come get you when it's ready. Maybe wash your face," he added with a nod at the angel.

Dean hurried to the lab where he'd left the mixture from earlier. He uncovered it carefully and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it had thickened and looked exactly the way the book said it should. He gathered the mixture and the rest of the supplies, his English instructions, and headed for the bathroom. There was a lot of empty space in the middle of the room, and if this ended up making a mess, the tile should be easier to clean. "Alright," he said to himself. "Showtime."

"Okay, Sammy, magic time!" he announced, returning to the kitchen. Sam bounced to his feet. "Cas, are you…?"

"I will remain here," Castiel said. "I do not imagine you will need me."

Dean nodded. Taking care of Sam was his job. He preferred to fix this himself. "Let's go, Sammy."

"We're doing magic in de bafroom?" Sam asked skeptically.

"It's a good place to do magic," Dean said. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

"Okay," Sam accepted. "What should I do?"

"I need you to strip and stand right there," Dean said, pointing to a spot in the middle of the room. Sam complied without question, and Dean shook his head, grabbed a bath towel and wrapped it around him. Older Sam would have gotten a little more hung up on the word 'strip'.

"Okay," Dean said. "Now sit down while I finish this." Sam sat, little face poking out from the folds of the towel, watching with interest as Dean sprinkled the last ingredients into the mixture.

"Dean?" Sam asked after a couple of minutes had passed.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I'm glad I get to help wif de magic, but how comes I hafta be nekkid?" he asked.

Dean choked on a laugh. There it was. "Well, if this goes the way I'm hoping it will, I'd hate for it to work only to have you choke to death on your own ridiculously tiny t-shirt. And if it doesn't work…" He sighed. It had to work. It just had to. He loved this little guy more than he could say, but he couldn't do this on his own—not the monsters, the angels, the Mark…not freakin' life. He needed his brother back. "If it doesn't work, you need a bath, man—you got spaghetti in your hair."

Sam nodded, clearly not following him, and Dean smiled. "Don't worry, there's a good reason."

"Okay."

"I'm gonna start now," Dean said, picking up the bowl. "I need you to sit right there and stay very still and be quiet, okay?"

Sam nodded seriously. Dean took a breath and started pouring out the mixture in a careful circle around his brother. It now resembled grape jelly and slipped easily from the bowl. The circle complete, Dean took a handful of powdered yarrow and scattered it over the top of the circle, going the opposite direction this time. He took another handful and sprinkled it over Sam's hair, tossing the last down with a flourish of his wrist and quickly said the incantation. For a long moment, nothing happened.

Sam sneezed, making Dean jump. Then there was a quick flash of light, making them both jump. The purple circle was gone.

"Did it work?" Sam whispered.

"I don't know," Dean said. "It did something." Sam squirmed in his towel, looking at the floor where the circle had been. Dean watched him carefully. "You alright, Sammy?" he asked when Sam fidgeted again, dislodging a shower of yarrow dust.

"I feel itchy, Dean."

Was that good? Sam had felt weird before turning tiny…

"Ow!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sammy?"

"It hurts, Dean," Sam moaned, and Dean panicked for just a second when it looked like Sam was getting even smaller before realizing he was just curling into a ball. "Dee-ean!"

Dean dropped to his knees beside him.

"Make it stop, Dee, it hurts," Sam whimpered. Dean swallowed down a catch in his throat. He hadn't thought that it might hurt changing back too, and while he was pretty sure it was working now, seeing the kid scared and in pain made him sick to his stomach.

"It's okay, Sammy," he soothed, scooping towel and brother into his lap as he started to cry. "It'll be okay. I've gotcha, little brother, and you're gonna be okay, I promise." He rocked him gently as Sam shuddered and twitched in his arms. "Just hang on, Sammy. You're gonna be fine."

Sam writhed in his arms, and Dean's heart broke at the pitiful, pained sounds he was making. Why couldn't this work faster?!

All of a sudden Sam convulsed once like he was having a seizure, then his little arms and legs started flailing around out of his control. Afraid he was going to hurt him, Dean let him go and carefully shifted him back to the floor. Sam whimpered and gasped, and Dean could see the magic finally starting to work. The towel rippled as the shape beneath it twisted and grew—a muscled arm shot out and grabbed Dean's ankle, and a leg longer than Sam had been tall kicked out from the opposite side, toes clenching as a deep voice roared in pain. A final thrash and a gasp, and Sam lay still.

"Sammy?" he asked carefully. Sam groaned into the floor, but made no move to push himself up. "Sam?" Dean laid a tentative hand on the back of his head and Sam sat up like a shot, breathing hard and realizing he was wearing nothing but a towel just in time to stop it from slipping out of place. His eyes darted around the room, wide and confused. "Sam," Dean said a little more firmly. "Are you in there?"

"Dean?" Sam asked, eyes coming to land on his brother, and Dean grinned. He was back. "What's—"

Dean laughed and pulled Sam into a crushing hug. "Ha!" he crowed. "It worked! It worked!"

"Whoa! Dude! Naked. Hugging. Get off!" Sam barked, pushing away.

Dean laughed even harder and sat back as Sam moved away, one hand firmly holding the towel around his waist.

"What's going on?" Sam asked. "I mean, seriously." He looked around as if seeking confirmation that he was in fact sitting naked in the middle of the bathroom floor. "What the hell just happened?"

"You're not supposed to say 'hell', Sam," Dean snickered. "That's a bad word."

"What?" Sam's eyebrows drew together, utterly perplexed.

"Give it a minute," Dean said. He chuckled as he watched the confusion deepen in Sam's face, only to be chased away by a mortified blush as the events of the last week slammed back into place. "There it is," he said gleefully.

"Did I… I was…" Sam stammered.

"Yep." Dean replied.

"For a whole week?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Oh, crap." Sam dropped his face into the hand not holding the towel. "I hate witches," he muttered into his palm.

"Join the club, man," Dean said, climbing to his feet and slapping Sam on the back. "Really, though, are you okay? Everything's back? You're not hurt anywhere?"

"Just my pride," Sam groaned. He climbed awkwardly to his feet and cinched the towel more securely around himself. "I'm gonna take a shower," he said, grimacing at the fine, yellow dust coating himself and the towel.

Dean nodded. He figured Sam would need a little while to wrap his head around everything. "Make sure you don't miss that spaghetti in your hair," he said, smirking up at the pasta clinging tenaciously to Sam's hair.

Sam reached up a hand to his head, sputtering when he knocked a noodle to the floor.

"You need a hand?" Dean continued with a grin. "Or are you a big boy who can take a bath by himself now?"

"Get out," Sam said, ears going red.

Dean held up his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, I'm going." He scooped up the bowl the purple stuff had been in and headed for the door while Sam stepped into the shower. "Should probably go tell 'Cassy-ell' you're fine now, anyway."

Sam groaned and jerked the shower curtain closed in an attempt to hide the multiple shades of red Dean knew he was turning. The water started running and Dean opened the door, only to be hit in back of the head by a wadded up, yarrow-coated towel.

"Seriously? You're not gonna stay?" Dean asked.

Castiel shook his head. "Now that Sam is restored, you no longer need my help, and there are things I must be doing. Besides," Cas shrugged a shoulder. "I imagine Sam is finding this very embarrassing—my departure should spare him some of that."

"Dude, that's the fun part," Dean grinned.

Cas smiled, but stuck with his answer. "I shall leave that up to you."

"Alright. Well, listen," Dean said more seriously. "Thanks for everything. This was…I couldn't have done it without you, man."

Cas chuckled softly and his mouth quirked up in a significant smile. "I have no doubt that even without me, the two of you would have been fine as always. But I am glad to have helped." He clapped Dean on the shoulder and headed for the stairs.

Dean returned to the kitchen to clean up the spaghetti sauce Sam had gotten all over the table. By the time he finished that and the dishes, he heard the soft padding of much larger bare feet on the tile. He couldn't keep himself from grinning at the sight of his overgrown little brother standing in the door in sweats and a t-shirt, scratching at the back of his damp, pasta-free hair. Dean turned and opened the microwave to hide his smile. "Here," he said, setting down a plate of spaghetti as Sam sat down. "Little guy loved to eat, but he ate like a bird. Thought you might still be hungry."

"Starving," Sam agreed. "Thanks."

Dean grabbed two beers from the fridge and slid one over to Sam as he sat down too. "Figure you're old enough for one of these now."

Sam's ears went pink but he accepted the drink. "Where's Cas?"

"Took off once he heard you were okay. Didn't want to embarrass you."

Sam snorted. "So he's gonna be nicer about it than you are?"

Dean shrugged. "Angels are funny that way. I thought at the least he'd want to sit around and talk Ninja Turtles with you."

"Shut up," Sam said, looking down at his food. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Sam didn't look up again until Dean started chuckling. "What?"

Dean shook his head. "Dude," he laughed. "I made you sit in the corner yesterday." Dean took a swig of his beer as his smile widened. He still couldn't believe he'd done that. "Do you have any idea what you would do to me if I tried to pull that now?"

Sam's cheeks were reddening, but gave an amused snort in spite of himself. "What I would do is kick your —"

"You watch your mouth, young man," Dean cut him off with a smirk.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're gonna have fun with this for a while, aren't you?"

"Oh, hell yeah," Dean agreed. It hadn't been funny when he wasn't sure if he could fix it (okay, it had been funny once or twice), but now that Sam was alright? It was freakin' hilarious.

Sam shook his head but smiled to himself and went back to his spaghetti. "Hey, Dean?" he said after a few minutes.

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

Dean arched an eyebrow.

"For…Well, for figuring out how to fix me, but, you know, taking care of me and everything this week."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, 'cause I was going to leave the three year-old to fend for himself while I figured things out."

Sam rolled his eyes again. "No, obviously not, you just…" He shrugged. "I remember this last week. I remember what you did, and you…you did more than you had to, you know? You were actually pretty great at it. So, thanks." The smile he offered was sincere and a little self-conscious and the puppy-dog eyes were back, brimming with gratitude on full little-brother power and softening the brilliantly witty comeback Dean had ready into a warm smile. Those things sure didn't lose their power with age.

"You're welcome," he replied. He looked away and took another swig of his beer before this could devolve into a total chick-flick moment. "So, Jodie's gonna call tomorrow. She's not happy, so you have fun with that."

"Yeah, thanks for that."

"Sure thing."

Sam stood to take his empty plate to the sink. "Hey, look at that," Dean teased. "You finished without getting any in your hair!"

"Bite me," Sam retorted without any heat.

"This is a big moment, Sammy," Dean continued. "I mean, there were points in this week I was pretty sure you were getting your nutrition by osmosis."

"This could still end up in someone's hair, you know," Sam shot back with a glare.

Dean snickered. It was good to have him back. He stood and stretched. "I'm heading to bed, man. Little guy wore me out."

Sam nodded. "Being the little guy wore me out," he said, following Dean to the hall. He arched a mischievous eyebrow. "Do I still get breakfast at seven?"

"You know you're big enough for me to hit now, right?"

Sam laughed and said nothing.

Dean paused at the door to his room. "We will never speak of this again," he warned Sam, gesturing to his room to reference the fact that Sam had spent the past seven nights in his bed.

"Totally fine with me," Sam said quickly, raising his hands in agreement.

"Good." Dean nodded. "From here on out, you have any more nightmares or whatever, you're on your own," he said, pointing to Sam's room sternly and not meaning a word.

Sam chuckled and nodded and Dean knew he wasn't buying it either. Three or thirty-one, Mark or no Mark, big brother was always going to be there if he needed him. "Good night, Dean,"

" 'Night, Sammy."