The mildest breeze could have knocked Sam down. He felt lightheaded.

At first, when he hadn't recognized the motel they were staying in, it hadn't come as a huge shock. They'd both come in late last night, Dean taking the wheel while Sam slept awkwardly in the passenger seat. Neither of them had as much checked into the room as they had simply transferred sleeping quarters. In fact, he wasn't sure what he HAD been expecting upon opening his eyes.

All that being said, he sure knew what he WASN'T expecting.

Sam wasn't expecting to flip back the covers to see short, chubby legs in place of his long, gangly limbs. He wasn't expecting to jump out of bed in a panic, to draw himself up to a full height far inferior to his own. And when he turned and caught sight of his reflection in a mirror hanging by the closed bathroom door, he had been expecting to see his own, adult face. Not a pink, round face with scared, wide eyes.

"Oh God." Sam's voice trembled at an octave or two higher than he was used to, and he brought his shaking hands up to his face, which were smaller than normal, and not yet entirely void of all baby fat. "I'm... thirteen."

He spun away from the mirror in panic.

Sam's first thought was that it had to be a dream. Or a hallucination. Or maybe he was going crazy? It couldn't be real. It couldn't be possible. Out of all the things they dealt with, believed in, knew existed, surely SOME things should still be fantasy. And age-alteration, time-travel, whatever this was - whatever it looked like - should NOT be on that list of things seen and believed.

His second thought was; 'Get a grip, Sam. Of course it's real. Has there been a single time in your life when you've thought 'this can't be real', and it actually wasn't?' He knew the answer was no.

And then he could sense someone behind him.

"Sam?" That husky baritone was so familiar... he almost didn't want to believe. But the pull was far too strong to ignore, and he turned around - wide, scared eyes meeting those of a much younger, clean-shaven John Winchester.

Heart thumping, coming close even to tears, Sam battled the urge to run forward and cling to his father - not only the father they'd been searching for whom he hadn't seen in over two years, but also (so far) the only familiar face in this whole confusion. And there he was, standing casually by the bathroom door, newspaper in hand as if nothing was wrong. It made no sense, but God, it felt good.

"Sam?" John asked again, worry creeping into his voice and a frown furrowing his brow. "Is everything alright?"

Before he even realized it, Sam took a small step backwards. John's tone didn't betray that anything was out of the ordinary, and Sam's 'dad will know what to do' theory vanished in an instant. He felt like shouting at the man; 'Of course not! Do I look alright? I'm a goddamn teenager!'

Fortunately, Sam still had twenty-three years of experience dealing with John under his belt - more than enough to know that a stunt like that could only end in disaster. If John thought his youngest son was supposed to be thirteen, then Sam would play along. For now. He nodded numbly, trying to remember what his attitude towards his father had been like in his early teens. "Everything's fine, Dad."

"Good." John replied simply, with a satisfied nod. He crossed the room to the small corner-kitchen and began busying himself trying to put together some makeshift form of breakfast. After the spring gave way in the toaster, the bread refusing to stay down for the fifth time, John uttered a groan of defeat.

"Dean!" He called, and Sam's head snapped around. Dean was here? "Come make your brother some breakfast, will you?"

Sam's gaze followed John's. After a few moments of wild anticipation, Dean appeared in the doorway, bare feet padding across the carpet in slow, tentative steps. He eyed John cautiously for a few moments, before his attention snapped to Sam.

Sam stared back. He recognized the boy as Dean, but he was far from the man he'd eventually grow into. This Dean looked about sixteen or seventeen, with a far less muscular build than he would one day acquire, and longer hair, flecked with light blonde. He was shorter, but not by much, and his skin was lighter, with less scars, but more pimples.

"M-mornin'" Dean managed, before turning around quickly and wedging a spatula into the space above the toaster spring. It stayed down with a satisfying 'click'.

The tension in the air was heavy, and Sam found himself wondering why toast took so damn long to cook. He chanced another glance at Dean, caught his eye and quickly looked away. But there was something in his expression which made him look far more mature than any seventeen year old should. And he looked worried, too. Sam wondered if Dean had woken up to the same shock he had, or if he, just like John, was merely part of the framework.

He knew it was selfish, but he really hoped it was the former option.

"Will one of you tell me what's going on with you boys?" John's voice cut through Sam's thoughts, pulling him back into the scenario he would have to accept - for now - as reality. Their father's scrutinizing glare flicked back and forth between the two of them, and when Sam looked up at Dean (up? dammit!), he saw his older brother looked just as nervous as he did.

"Nothing." They both replied, almost in unison.

John cocked a skeptical brow. "Why don't I believe that? And Dean, what the hell was all that yellin' about in the bathroom earlier?"

Dean froze, and in that moment Sam was SURE that this was his Dean, his twenty-seven year old big brother, trying to invent a lie to cover what had surely been his shock at waking and seeing his seventeen-year-old face.

"Uh... zit?" Dean's excuse was weak, but John's attention was drawn away by the sound of toast popping. The toaster tab caught on the spatula Dean had stuck in there, and John yanked it out before it burned their breakfast.

But then Dean plucked the bread from the toaster and began buttering it - cutting off the crusts on Sam's piece - with such a natural ease that Sam was unsure all over again.

Accepting his toast with a muttered 'thanks', they sat down at the table strewn with research and stacked with old books, and ate in a tense silence. And that one thought kept nagging at Sam, as he stared at his chubby little hand clutching the crustless toast. That this shouldn't be possible.

-----------------------

Sammy didn't like the crust. That, he remembered.

Dean studied his little brother from the corner of his eye as he munched on the cooling toast. Sam was staring at his hands as if he couldn't work out whether they were his or not. He'd been acting nervous, too, but that wasn't to say he was necessarily in the same position Dean had found himself in that morning. Maybe he could simply sense that there was something wrong with his big brother.

And oh, there was something wrong alright.

The room he had woken up in had looked vaguely familiar - not that he remembered much at all of last night - but as soon as he dragged himself out of bed he had felt strange. Different, somehow, but familiar, in a nostalgic sort of way. Dean knew from experience that these feelings were never good, so he immediately went into the bathroom and shut the door. His intentions - ironically - had been to ease his mind in proving that there was nothing wrong.

Dean Winchester had gone to bed twenty-seven. And had woken up seventeen.

The yell had escaped him before he could stop it. The sight of his teenaged face staring back at him from the mirror was enough to send him into shock. And opening to door to find the father he'd been crisscrossing the country in search of didn't help much either.

But Sammy was here. And having Sammy meant he could concentrate - it meant he could keep a cool head when his brother was around. And whether it was his thirteen year old self or his twenty-three year old self, or anything in between that was looking up at him from those round, innocent eyes, Dean didn't really care. The ease he'd felt at slipping back into that caregiver role was almost enough to make him believe he really was seventeen again.

Almost.

Dean didn't know what had gone wrong to cause this, but he knew he had to fix it.

"Boys," John's voice cut into his thoughts. "If you eat any slower, you're gonna be late for school.

"Oh HELL no!" It was out before Dean could stop himself. School? As if this day couldn't get any worse.

John's face clouded over. "Hell yes, young man. And watch you're mouth around Sammy."

"Dad, did you forget?" Sam piped up. "There's some sort of inter-schools teacher conference today. We all have the day off."

Dean closed his eyes. Thank the Lord for Teacher-Only Day. Considering the mental trauma he'd undergone just that morning, showing up at a school he barely remembered as an adult wearing a teenager's face, would be damn near enough to push him over the edge.

John regarded them both suspiciously for a moment. "Is that true, Dean?"

Dean frowned for a second. Couldn't the man just trust Sammy? "Yeah, it's true." He lied. "You signed the permission form and everything."

Permission form. Dean could hardly believe the words which were coming out of his mouth.

"It's a good thing, too." Dean continued cautiously. "'Cause I remember Sam saying he had a book report due which he hadn't finished." He turned to his little brother. "If you want, I could give you a hand with that."

Sam barely hesitated before he nodded and stood up. "Yeah... uh, thanks Dean."

They pushed back their chairs and vanished into the bedroom

"So, Sammy..." Dean chose his words carefully. If he really was the only one out of place in his own skin, he didn't want his little brother to think he was a complete freak. "Whaddya reckon I'll be doing on my twenty-first birthday? Drinking with friends? Picking up chicks?"

Sam's small face broke into a wide grin. "More like getting your ass kicked by a poltergeist and then being dragged back to a motel for D.I.Y stitches."

Dean collapsed onto the bed, heaving a huge sigh of relief. "It is you. Well, thank God something's going right."

Sam took a seat on the other bed, feet barely even brushing the floor. "Yeah, well one good turn isn't gonna solve this for us, Dean."

"You were never this pissy at thirteen." Dean scowled, although he knew his little brother was right. "What happened to 'the glass is half full'?"

"Sorry, I must've left that optimism back in 2006." Sam replied with a sarcastic huff. "It just... bothers me. We weren't even on a hunt. We'd been on the road for almost a week with no leads, chasing nothing. The timing's random."

"For that time period, maybe." Dean replied, brows furrowed in deep thought.

Sam frowned, considering the possibility. "What, so... you think something happened here to bring us back?"

"Well, yeah." Dean shrugged. "There aren't many other options."

"Okay... but then what are we looking for? If something big enough to cause this happened, I think we'd remember it."

That was Sam... full of questions Dean didn't know how to answer.

"Yeah, well... if things messed up enough for us to pull a Back to the Future moment, the timeline's bound to be screwed." He suggested. "Maybe whatever it is hasn't happened yet."

Sam considered this with mild optimism. It made sense, in some whacked-out way. Honestly, nothing had made any sense so far today. He shifted on the bed, hating how small he felt, hating the way his high little voice made him feel like he had a frog in his throat, refusing to budge no matter how much he cleared it. Mildly jealous that Dean hadn't changed nearly as much. He sighed a small huff of defeat. "And Dad has no idea."

"Looks that way."

"How are we gonna tell him?" Sam shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts of possible scenarios that could follow that inevitable conversation. None of them were even a little appealing. "I mean, how the hell do you drop a bombshell like -"

"We're not telling him anything, Sam." Dean jumped in, face set in determination. "He doesn't need that kind of shock, not on top of everything else he has to deal with."

Sam stared, hardly believing the words coming out of his brother's mouth. "Dean, don't you think he might notice something's different? He's already asked once."

"Yeah, and we're gonna make sure that's the last time he does." The eldest insisted. This was one subject he wasn't going to budge on. "Look, Sammy, you said it yourself, the man's not exactly a wet paper bag when it comes to sharing. This is not something he needs to know. End of discussion."

And that was when Sam discovered what was, possibly the one and only perk of his newly rediscovered youth. Bunching his eyebrows together, and drawing up his bottom lip, Sam turned the puppy dog eyes on full-force.

Dean recognized his plan immediately, and scowled. "That's not fair, Sammy. Just turn those things off; I'm not changing my mind."

A few more seconds. Sam let his chin tremble just a little.

Dean turned away, sure he would fall into the trap his brother was setting if he didn't. "I know that's still you in there, Sam. Those big doe-eyes aren't gonna work this time."

When he cautiously faced Sam again - squinting his eyes just in case - it seemed the man had given up, replacing the sad puppy expression with one of simple frustration. Dean sighed.

"We're doing him a favor here."

Sam gave a less-than-convinced nod. "It's not gonna be easy, keeping this from him."

"Sure it will." Dean smirked. "All you have to do is act moody all the time. Occasionally run into your room screaming things like 'Leave me alone! You're ruining my life!'"

"Oh yeah, real funny, Dean." Sam stood up, his full height bringing him only a few inches taller than Dean was sitting on the bed. "I was never that bad."

Dean chuckled as his tiny brother gave up trying to stretch himself to a taller height, and stomped away. "Don't forget to slam the door!"

"Bite me." Came Sam's reply, as he obliged with a loud 'bang'. Seemed the twenty-three year old didn't respond well to teenage hormones.

Dean snorted and lay back on his elbows, observing the now quiet and empty room. When he'd woken up that morning, the full length mirror opposite his bed had given him a helluva fright. He'd stared dumbly for a few seconds, before rocketing out of bed and slamming the bathroom door behind him. Coming face-to-face with a version of himself he hadn't seen in ten years had been scary. And running a hand over his young face, covered in scratchy adolescent stubble and blemishes, examining the skinny physique he'd left behind so many years ago, he'd thought things couldn't get any stranger.

But seeing Sammy had been something else. He'd almost forgotten his Sasquatch of a brother had started out in such a small package. And he was cute. The whiny bitch was actually freakin' adorable, and Dean hated that Sam seemed to realize that and was more than willing to use it against him.

He rolled over, something on the nightstand catching his eye. He moved a few papers aside - which he assumed, by the untidy scrawl and doodles, was his long-estranged homework - to reveal a messy stack of old Playboys.

"Hello..." He couldn't suppress the grin which spread across his face as he picked up the magazines. With such limited living quarters, Dean remembered having to get rid of them when he started hunting on his own. There just wasn't the room or time for such simple... pleasures. He settled back against the pillows.

"Almost forgot I had these. Pamela, it's been a long time."