This is a disclaimer.

AN: So we're clear: I'm not convinced Dean ever time travelled. I think Castiel created a Djinn!world of sorts for him so he could see for himself what happened in 1973, because, let's face it, Dean is not the most credulous of persons, and he's not real big with the whole believing-the-messenger-of-the-Lord thing, either.

BUT. If Dean did time travel? Then this totally happened. nods.

Afterlife

So he's in this diner, right, some run-of-the-mill eatery somewhere in the endless Midwest of America, nursing a cup of coffee, and in stumbles Dean, yawning and scrubbing a hand through his hair. He's filled out a bit since hitting twenty-three, broadened some. Looks more a man now than a boy, but it'll take more than looks - a Hell of a lot more - before John stops thinking of him, not just as a boy, but as my boy.

Dean staggers over to the counter and drops onto the stool next to John like a sack of potatoes, and John gestures to the waiter, another coffee here for my damn fool of an eldest son, please.

"You have fun last night?" OK, so he's a little amused. And perhaps also kinda sadistic.

"Super," Dean croaks. "That Mandy chick, oh man."

"And you even remembered her name. I did bring you up right after all."

"There's not much about her I'm gonna forget," Dean mutters. John grins, wide and delighted, as the coffee arrives. It's good to see Dean being Dean again; he was too quiet for too long after - after Sam left.

John puts the breaks on that train of thought fast as he can. No good cryin' over spilled milk, his Ma used to say, along with guilt is the most useless emotion human beings ever invented.

Although she might not, perhaps, have approved of the sheer number of times her only son has taken those words to heart the last few years.

Dean lets out another groan when he puts the half-drained coffee cup back down, jerking his Dad's attention back to him. "Man. I've been hung over before, but that..."

It's a little like getting slapped in the face. And then it's like seeing double: the kid beside him, the boy he knows as my son, long familiar and more loved than he'll ever be able to put into words. But there's a man there, too: several years older than Dean, wiser, steadier, a little grimmer. He remembers the look the other man wore: amused and knowing, an odd amalgation of friendliness and restraint, like he was bursting to say something and knew he wasn't allowed.

John sits there and stares at Dean for a long time, his coffee untouched as Dean chugs down two more cups. Watches the way he moves, the lines of his face, the deft, strong hands, the way the leather jacket sits across his shoulders.

Dean looks up finally, catches his eye. "What?" he asks. "Do I look that bad?"

John finds he's grinning again. "No," he says, and strangely the idea doesn't freak him out in the least. Not a bit of it. He... likes it. He likes the idea that somehow, sometime, Dean will be able to remember what his father was like at nineteen, know when he bought the Impala (and man, did it cost him some willpower to promise Mary that damn VW van. He'd been eyeing the Chevy next door to it for a month, and the man from the diner turning up like that had been the answer to a lot of unspoken prayers for a sign from above). He likes the idea that Dean might, some day, be in a position to actually remember his mother.

"No," he repeats, standing up and stepping forward. Claps a hand on Dean's shoulder and gives it a squeeze, warm and heavy. "Not at all, kiddo. Not at all. Come join me when you can see straight, yeah?"