Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters from the show. There will however be OCs in this and those I do own.

Ch 1: An Unusual Hunt

"Dean I swear to God I'm gonna…" Sam Winchester couldn't keep himself from saying in frustration as his older brother continued to go on and on and on about another pointless and annoying topic. The two of them were on a hunt, investigating strange occurrences in a backwater town, and thus far they'd had exactly zero luck finding anything. And Dean, being Dean, couldn't manage to keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes at a time which was starting to grate on Sam's nerves.

"Shh…" Dean said, holding up a hand to silence his brother.

Which only served to further annoy Sam.

"What the hell do you mean shh? You're the one that won't shut up," Sam said before noticing the look that had appeared on Dean's face, which served to gain his compliance. He knew that particular look, it was the serious look that only a hunt could bring into his brother's green eyes. Apparently the pain in the ass had actually heard or seen something, Sam closing his mouth and looking around.

It was true that Dean had been annoying his brother non stop since they arrived here, completely on purpose and because it amused him, but the moment that he heard something rustling around in some bushes he was all business. He liked to have a good time as much as the next person but he took his job seriously and given that it was about midnight and pitch dark outside he was very interested in what was currently making that noise.

"If it's a cat I'm going to laugh at you," Sam told his brother once he had picked up on just what it was that had managed to capture his brother's attention. He wasn't entirely sure if this was anything significant but just like his brother he was immediately on the alert simply because in their line of work it was just flat out stupid not to be ready for anything.

And yet neither of them was ready for what happened next.

The leaves of the bush began to move more, as though something was trying to escape from the foliage, and that caused both Dean and Sam to draw their weapons. Better to be safe than sorry even though they didn't even know if the weapons they were wielding would work against whatever it was that was attempting to escape from the bush.

Or if it was anything supernatural at all.

It really could just be a stray animal that was trying to find food or something.

All the same they knew that there was something unusual going on in this town, there had been too many reports of strange phenomena for it to all be a coincidence. So the brothers stared at the leaves, on the alert, and they both ended up gaping when a small child emerged from beneath the leaves, a disgruntled look on his face.

"Well…it's not a cat," Dean said sort of helplessly as he looked down at the little boy that had plopped down and was now staring up at them through bright and inquisitive blue eyes.

"No…" Sam said, his gaze focused on the kid as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. "Dean what's a kid doing out here in the middle of the night?" Even as he asked this question he looked around to see if there was anyone else around.

Vaguely thinking that this might be a trap or something.

Perhaps not a thought that most rational people would have since as far as he was aware there wasn't anyone in this town that knew them. Still experience had taught him to always expect the worst and since their enemies had an uncanny knack for finding them the younger Winchester wasn't going to rule out a trap despite this being a really weird way to trap someone.

"No idea," Dean said as he knelt down to get a better look at the child.

"Owie…" the little one said as he pointed toward the man that was now kneeling in front of him, not seeming to be the least bit scared as he faced the stranger.

"Huh?" Dean questioned, his gaze going in the direction that the child had pointed and he noticed that he'd managed to somehow reopen a wound that he'd gained in their last hunt. He had no idea how he'd even done it nor why it was that the child opted to focus on that, his gaze going back to the kid. "Yea, owie, but it's not a big deal kid. Look, where'd you come from? Where are your parents?" Dean ended up firing off questions faster than the kid could answer, assuming he was even going to answer, but he really wanted to know what was going on.

"Owie," the boy just repeated, the little brown haired child scooting closer to the man and then reaching out toward the wound.

"What are you doing kid?" Dean asked as he gazed at the kid, completely confused by this kid's strange actions. Now he didn't have much experience with kids, just with Sam when they were both little, but even he knew that this was not the way that normal kids behaved.

"Owie…" the boy repeated for a third time, his blue eyes going back to the man for a moment before he once again reached a finger out toward the bleeding cut.

Dean started to move his arm away but then something happened that both shocked him and kept him from moving out of the way.

The kid's finger started to glow.

"Dean…" Sam said, his own gaze glued to the kid's now glowing finger.

Staring as though transfixed Dean watched as the boy touched his injury with his finger and it healed before his very eyes. It wasn't painful, there was just a feeling of warmth spreading out from the spot where the child touched, and then the cut was gone. There wasn't even a scar to show that it had been there, which completely shocked Dean.

"Well…I think we may have found the source of all those stories," Dean said as the little boy pulled his finger away and then looked up at him with a smile. "Fuck…" he said without thinking, this about as bad of an outcome as they could have encountered.

He hated all things supernatural, or so he maintained, but this was a kid.

"Man we can't gank a kid," Dean said with a frustrated groan, his gaze still focused on the boy.

"Dean I think maybe we should focus more on finding out exactly what he is… because there are a few options for healing powers and I don't really like any of them," Sam said, his gaze shifting back and forth between his brother and the brown haired boy that was still sitting quite contentedly on the grass.

"Maaaan," Dean whined, looking at his brother with something of a helpless look.

"Don't look at me," Sam said with a shake of his head, having experience with those looks from his brother and knowing what it was that Dean wanted from him.

"I don't know anything about kids," Dean said before groaning when the kid actually lifted his arms in that classic little kid 'pick me up' gesture. "Great, it picked me," Dean said as he picked the kid up, standing as he did so and sort of holding the little boy at arm's length, gripping the kid under the arms and just leaving him to dangle.

"Dean…" Sam said in a slightly admonishing tone.

"Fuck!" the little boy announced rather happily, squirming and giggling despite the way that he was currently being held. He didn't seem to know or care that the man holding him at arm's length clearly didn't know anything about kids.

Dean did at least have the good graces to look sheepish when he heard the word that escaped the kid's lips. "Um…no, you shouldn't say words like that kid," he said, sounding as awkward as he looked as he explained this. "That word is a bad word."

He felt so weird saying that but he did at least realize that he shouldn't be teaching the kid bad habits. Yet even as that particular thought entered his mind, him being a bad influence on this strange child, he realized how weird that really was. He didn't even know what the kid was or whether he was a danger and here he was worried about what sort of language the kid was using.

"Dean we should probably get out of here before someone shows up and starts asking a lot of questions we can't answer," Sam said, knowing with their luck that was exactly what would happen and then they'd end up on the hook for kidnapping or something. Or else the kid would show off his powers more and then things would get really tricky really fast.

All in all it was best if they avoided all of those scenarios.

"Right," Dean said, turning around with the kid still held as far away from him as he could manage. The man took a few steps forward and then paused, looking at the kid and then looking a bit stricken. "What if it makes a mess in my car?"

"Dean…suck it up," Sam said, rolling his eyes and making a 'get moving' gesture with his head toward where they had left the Impala.

"Maaaan," Dean whined again as he started walking toward his precious baby.

"Maaaaan," the little boy mimicked, again giggling and seeming to be having a good time despite the odd way that he was being carried. A bright smile was on the child's face and he giggled and squirmed the entire way to the car, the child blinking a few times as he was placed in the back.

Sam ended up smiling when he heard the little boy mimicking his brother, thinking that was pretty hilarious. Mainly because Dean didn't seem to know how to react to it and currently looked so lost and confused, which he had to admit was funny to him. Sure he cared about his brother more than anything else but that didn't mean that he didn't delight in the older man's torture the same way that any brother would.

"Careful Dean or else you're going to teach him all sorts of bad habits," Sam said as he got into the passenger's side of the Impala.

"I'm not going to teach it anything…because we're going to figure out what it is and then figure out what to do with it," Dean said, still looking a bit unnerved as he got behind the wheel of his car. His green eyes shifted to the spot on his arm where the cut had been, still more than a little bit freaked out by the fact that it was gone and that the child in the back was responsible for that. He tried to brush that aside however as he started the car so they could head back to the motel they were currently calling home.

The rumble of the Impala's engine was immediately met with a whining nose from the child.

"Dude, I don't think he likes your car," Sam said.

To which Dean gasped and said, "Blasphemy."

The little boy in the backseat continued to fuss and whine, his blue eyes slightly wider than normal as he gazed around.

"Dude, you're okay," Dean said to the fussing kid in the backseat of his car. "We're not walking to the motel so you're gonna have to deal with it until we get there."

"Way to go Dean, tell the toddler to deal with it," Sam said with a shake of his head, sort of snorting at this entire exchange.

"There are worse things I could do," Dean said in response to his brother's words, his eyes losing focus for a moment before he snapped himself out of that train of thought and focused on what he needed to do now. "Look, we're going to go to the motel and then I'm gonna see if Cas will maybe show up and help us figure out what the hell's going on with this kid."

"You think he'll come?" Sam asked when Dean brought up the angel.

"Probably…maybe, hell I don't know but it's worth a shot," Dean said as he once again focused his gaze on the road ahead of him. He attempted to block out the noise that the kid was making in the back, humming Metallica in an attempt to drown it out since there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it save for get them to their destination as quickly as possible.

"That's reassuring," Sam said, knowing that it was hit or miss with the angel whether he came when Dean tried to summon him.

"It's the best I've got," Dean said, raising his voice a little to combat the fussing that was still going on in the back of the car.

Sam accepted that as truth and fell silent, his thoughts shifting to what they were going to do with the kid now that they had him. He was occupied with that internal musing for the rest of the drive, the younger Winchester heaving a sigh of relief when they finally reached the motel where they were staying.

"Okay, next goal is get the kid inside without looking like kidnappers," Sam said as he got out of the car, waiting for his brother and then gesturing toward the back. "Get him out, we can't just leave him in the car," he prompted.

"I know, he might mess up my baby," Dean said, taking a deep breath as though to prepare himself for this and then opening the door.

The fussing from the child immediately stopped as his innocent blue eyes shifted again to the man that had held him before. And just as he had done earlier the little one lifted his arms in that 'pick me up' gesture, clearly wanting out of the car.

Feeling a tiny bit less awkward than he had the first time Dean picked the kid up and then used his hip to close the car door before turning back to his brother. "Go open the door," he ordered, falling into step behind Sam as the younger but taller brother lead the way to their motel room. It didn't take long to get the door open and once it was Dean all but rushed inside, depositing the kid on one of the beds, Sam's of course, and then sort of staring at him.

"Now what?" Dean asked, looking over at Sam with a questioning look.

"No idea," was the reply that he gained from Sam, the larger man looking sort of lost. "I mean I wouldn't really know what to do even if the kid was normal, which he clearly isn't. We may have bitten off more than we can chew with this one."

"Well there's a shocker," Dean said with a roll of his eyes, thinking that they quite frequently bit off more than they could chew. Hell it was like an ongoing theme with them. Like a bad song that got stuck in your head and you couldn't get it out. Sighing again and face palming Dean closed his eyes and said, "Oh Castiel, we could really, and I put heavy emphasis on the really, use a little help down here right now. So if you could see fit to get your feathery ass down here that would be great."

Sam just ended up snorting, always amused by the way that his brother attempted to summon the angel.

Looking puzzled in response to what the man was saying the little boy sort of stared at him for a moment before blinking a few times and then rolling over onto his stomach. Once on his stomach the child slowly worked his way off the bed and onto his own two feet, the little guy looking around with curiosity in his eyes.

Viewing the motel room as a new place to explore the little one toddled around, currently not really being watched by either of the adults in the room.

A fact that will henceforth be known as mistake number one.

The room wasn't very large but given the fact that it was occupied by the Winchesters that meant that there were some very dangerous things lying about. The little brown haired boy inevitably found a duffel bag filled with such things.

And the Winchesters realized that they should have been paying more attention when they heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

Both brothers' gazes immediately flew toward the sound, taking note of the toddler that was now holding a gun pointed in their general direction.

"Well shit…" Dean said as he locked his gaze on the gun.

"Dean, what's that loaded with?" Sam asked, really hoping that it had non-lethal ammunition. Or at least something that was going to be non-lethal to a human.

"That one's live," Dean said, giving his brother the worst case scenario news that on some level Sam had to have been expecting. Nothing went in their favor, ever, so there was no reason to be harboring any hope that things would be different in this instance.

"Great," Sam said with a groan. "So how do we convince a supernatural toddler not to shoot us?"

"Ask nicely?" Dean said with a shrug of his shoulders, turning his green eyes back to the kid in question as he spoke. His thoughts were sort of tumultuous for a moment but then he got a stern look on his face as he walked toward the kid, hoping as he did so that he wasn't about to get shot. "Give that to me right now little boy, that is not a toy," he said as he walked forward, his tone stern as he spoke to the child and he really hoped that this would work.

Because he did not want to get shot today.

The little boy seemed to study him as he started walking but when the man told him to hand over the toy that he'd picked up, adding that it wasn't in fact a toy, the little one was startled enough that he actually did hand over the gun when the man reached him and held out a hand for it.

"Thank you," Dean said once he had the gun in hand, the man blowing out a relieved sigh. "Maybe we can find you something to play with but this ain't it," he added, looking at Sam pointedly as he held out the gun and said, "Make sure this stuff is out of his reach, would ya?" After getting a nod of confirmation that his brother would do that Dean turned back to the kid, picking him up and this time balancing the little one on his hip. "How about some cartoons, huh? That might keep you occupied for five minutes," he suggested, carrying the boy over to a chair and depositing him in front of the television. Turning it on he realized belatedly what time it was but thankfully this place had on demand and not all of it was porn. Figuring that it didn't matter if they ordered it since the tab was being paid by a fraudulent credit card anyway Dean picked up the remote and found some cartoons for the kid, hoping that would keep him out of trouble.

That task completed he again looked at the ceiling. "We're waiting Cas!" he called out in a sort of impatient voice, really wishing that the angel would get his feathery ass down here and help them with their problem.

TBC….