Title: Panda Onesies and Ugly Bunnies

Summary: At a time when the brothers are not on the best of terms, Sam is bewitched into an infant. For a while, things are good between them, even if they're different. It also makes Dean think a lot. Set sometime after 9.13. Baby!Sam — BigBrother!Dean — Baby Sam-Castiel friendship.

Warning: spoilers for 8.23 and up to 9.13, mentions of suicidal ideation (due to episodes 8.23 and 9.01)

Part One

That damn bitch.

That was all Dean could think as he stared down at the tiny human, maybe about seven-months old at most, his chubby legs and arms waving aimlessly in the air. He was swathed beneath a giant red plaid and a beige jacket, jeans pooling below them, where his 6'4 sasquatch for a brother had stood only a couple of seconds ago. Sam had that expression on his face that babies often had, all wide eyes as if they were constantly alarmed, chin doubled as drool shone all over it.

That stupid fucking witch that they were after chanted some incomprehensible, foreign-tongued words and then shot some weird glowing magic ball at his brother, just before before she bolted, and then…

And then this happened.

And then of course, Sam started making these distressed noises, writhing agitatedly on the floor, and doing Dean the generous favor of telling him in advance what was coming. His pink rosebud lips turned downwards, eyebrows pinching, face going flush as it crumpled.

And then he started bawling, all high and nasal, jerky pauses in between when he ran out of air.

Dean knelt down before the baby, reached down for him and gathered him in his arms, red plaid shirt (that was enormous in comparison, made Dean wonder how Sam ever turned from this into the Big Bird) still draped over his body, his small wavy-haired head on his elbow. He felt soft and light, too small in his too big arms and against his too big chest, and even though Dean was definitely not new at this whole thing, he was rusty, and he still felt a bit afraid of holding someone so fragile. "Hey... shh...stop that. Come on. You're running out of air."

He did not stop it, tiny hands smacking him in the chest. So Dean sighed, thought, how the fuck... and bounced him gently in his arms. "Alright...alright," he soothed, rubbed his chubby, squishy arm with one hand, and then slid it up to close his hand around his little one, covered it whole, and he shook it lightly. "Chill out a bit, huh?"

Sam's face slowly fell away into a look where he was still on the edge of crying, but now mostly curious, his big wet eyes staring up at him.

"Why'd you have to go get yourself into another crappy situation again, man?" Dean sighed.

They hadn't been in the best place in their relationship these past couple of weeks, what with Dean having let an angel into his brother without his true consent, who then went rogue and murdered their friend. Dean felt like shit about it (because when did he not have something to feel like shit about). He knew it was his fault, and if he could go back and change things, he would have told Sam sooner about what was going on so that something like that wouldn't have happened, but if he was honest, he couldn't say he regretted it. Guilty, definitely, but not regretful, because he couldn't wish that he had never saved the life of the only person he had now, and the kid he literally raised. He just fucking couldn't. Even if only a few days ago, Sam had told him that he wouldn't have saved him in his place, if he was the one dying.

No, Dean. I wouldn't. Same circumstances... I wouldn't.

So as if he didn't already have a ton of crap on his plate, what with Sam wanting to be nothing more than stiff acquaintances and Gadreel and Abaddon and the Mark of Cain. Of course Sam had to go and get more crap on his plate by getting himself turned into a sprog.

Sam was making a wet razzing sound now, more fresh drool on his chin, big doe eyes behind long eyelashes his gums toothless as he grinned widely up at him, hands reaching out at Dean's face.

And well, he was a really... really cute (okay, yeah, he used that word. He did it) one. No surprise there. He remembered how all the ladies, mostly in the form of waitresses, used to coo and go all maternal over him when they were young.

"Yeah, I forgot what a lady-killer you were," Dean said, chuckling. He wiggled the top of Sam's nose with his index finger, let Sam grab and tug at his cheeks.

…

Dean had to cut up Sam's red plaid (which he would not be too happy about once he got back to his Jolly the Green Giant self, because it was his favorite one) to make a sort of makeshift shirt, which...still made him look like he was drowning in it, the sleeves and collar being too wide. The kid had always been on the extreme ends of the size spectrum, either too tiny or too gigantic. Even as a teen, he was too small for his age, and then he had his growth spurt at sixteen and sprouted like a beanstalk, which was probably the only time he was ever normal-sized for his age before his body had decided that it wanted to be the size of a yeti.

They didn't have diapers, so that would have to be makeshift too, but he was still counting on him not having to go into his, probably very unreliable, fake-pamper until they were done getting all the resources. The shirt was long enough to reach Sammy's knees so nobody had to know about it. Still, if Dean didn't get Social Services called on him today, he would be extremely lucky.

…

Dean had forgotten what a seriously clingy baby Sammy used to be at times.

He had cried the whole way through here, secured by the safety belt in the backseat. Having no other option but that, he could do nothing but listen to his endless wails and try fruitlessly to talk to him from the front. He had only calmed down when, upon reaching their destination at the store, Dean had finally unfastened the belt on him and picked him up from the backseat.

And then, he refused to be placed in the trolley seat, so Dean was forced to carry him around for about forty minutes while he collected everything that they needed for their current situation. When he tried to unwrap Sam from himself once more after, to put him in the seat of the shopping trolley, he tensed up against his arm, fisting Dean's shirt.

"Dude, come on. I've been carrying you for almost an hour," he complained (almost sounded whiny, but Dean Winchester was a badass monster hunter with a lifetime of training in battle and didn't whine). "My arms are going sore."

When he tried to unlatch him a little more insistently, Sammy let out a frustrated shriek and arched his back. Dean winced, almost sure his ears just bled a little, and then caved in with a heavy sigh, rubbing a gentle hand down his back. He let the baby settle against him, whimpering slightly. His cheek burrowed into his shoulder, pudgy little fingers playing with the back of his collar.

"Okay then," Dean huffed, shifted him a little against his chest. Sammy turned his head on his shoulder, facing the side of Dean's neck instead. "You just have to get your way, huh?"

...

When he was walking to the car (also currently known as the future changing room), pushing the cart of newly purchased items towards it, he suddenly realized that Sammy's makeshift diaper was soaked.

Dean put his hands under his armpits, pulled him back in front of him, and scowled. "You couldn't have waited til we got to the car, could ya?"

For some reason, Sam seemed to find that hilarious, letting out a loud peal of laughter as his legs jerked up and down in the air.

In the car, he changed the diaper, disposed of Sammy's piss poor excuse for one in a nearby garbage can, and strapped him in the backseat again. There was, of course, a whole lot of fuss as expected, Sammy writhing and struggling in agitation beneath the belt, face red with exertion and tears.

"Look, I'd love to carry you around until my limbs break off, Sammy, but it's literally illegal for me to sit you in the front...well, okay, we've never cared about that, but I support this law. It's for your own good."

Sam pushed up against the strap, trying to pull at it, whimpering as tears streamed down his cheeks. Dean felt that strong surge in his veins once again, that desperate need to just—just console him and keep him happy and protect him from fucking everything.

"Sammy, it's okay. I'm right here, okay?" he murmured, leaning close. "I'll be in the front. See?" He pointed at the driver's seat. "Right there." But Sammy was still crying, so Dean sighed, took his little hands in his and kissed his forehead and hummed rock tunes until he calmed down, pink-faced and staring at him through watery eyes, silent and captivated by the melody.

He fed him canned applesauce with a disposable spoon he bought a packet of. Dean remembered Sammy used to love this mushy apple stuff as a baby, so he ate it without any resistance until he had enough.

…

At the baby clothing shop, he got a lot of weird, suspicious looks. At least the store was mostly unpopulated, so there had been less public to avoid. Now there were all these dubious parents and wary people staring at him, trying to figure out if he was a child kidnapper or a child abuser. He was trying to hurry through without looking like he was hurrying through, because that would just make him seem even more suspicious, but was it really his fault if some of them looked like they were about to flip out their phones and call CPS on him?

"Sammy, Batman or Captain America?" Dean asked, holding up two baby shirts, one dark grey with the Batman logo on it, and another blue with Captain America's signature shield on it.

Sammy stared for a while at them, gnawing on his fingers. Then, he took them out of his mouth and slowly leaned forward over the trolley handle, and then caught both of them with his spit-soaked fingers (the kid was just chewing on them constantly no matter how many times Dean removed his hand from his mouth). He cooed, chipmunk cheeks denting with dimples as he grinned.

"Oh… oh okay. Yeah. That's a good idea. We can just… get em' both."

And then Sam forced him to put a panda onesie in the cart. For whatever reason, he took a serious liking to it. When Dean passed by the romper hanging on the clothing rack, he reached one hand out (the other still in his mouth) to the white and black one piece, having a panda head as the hood. Dean took one look at it, decided, "nope," and tried to keep rolling, except then Sam started yell-whining, taking his hand out of his mouth and stretching both of his arms out for it.

"Sammy...man, that's too cutesy for us. We're badass monster-killing machines. We don't wear panda onesies."

Sammy pointed his salivated hand at it, looked at Dean with the biggest and the cutest fucking eyes and went, "aan," which translated to 'I want' in baby Sammy talk.

Dean exhaled, took it off the rack and muttered, "That's just playing dirty." He threw it in the trolley. Sammy patted on both his hands on the handle with his own tiny ones, laughing happily. He shook his head. "Real dirty."

…

They had about an hour before they would get to the bunker. Sammy was sleeping in his new car seat in the back, and Dean was thinking about all the stuff they were going to have to keep on hold for however long this whole thing lasted. He wasn't sure if it was a temporary curse or if they would have to find a cure for it, or if they would have to kill the witch to fix the mess. Who knew where the bitch ran off to now?

He was also suddenly realizing how much he liked having Sammy like this, and that, for some reason, made him feel like shit. It wasn't that he didn't want Sam as he really was with him anymore. It was just that their relationship was so fucked up these days, and he would never say this out loud, but damn he really missed his brother, and he felt crappy for what he had done (even if not for the reason why) and he just couldn't get past his giant ego and tell him that.

And Sammy as a baby just… he didn't know what he'd done. He didn't feel pissed and betrayed and he hadn't been hurt by Dean and he just didn't hate him.

And he knew how pathetic that was. But god, he just wanted his brother back, even if it was just like this. He would have liked it better if it was his bigfoot self, but… even just like this. He'd take it, even if it wouldn't last long and he'd be back to getting cold shoulders and cold, business-like tones and the subtle, hidden anger and betrayal in Sammy's gaze whenever he looked at him. But for now, he'd take it.

…

He carefully unstrapped Sammy from the car seat and gathered him up in his arms. Sam's fingers twitched beside his head, face twitching as well in his sleep at the mild disturbance as Dean picked him up, but otherwise relaxed into Dean's grasp.

He looked peaceful, cheeks smushed against his chest, mouth hanging open in deep slumber, free of all the sorrow and pain that life had dealt out to him, that had made their home in the lines of his face when he was older, hung in his eyes heavily for so long that it became a part of him, and they both just stopped noticing.

He shut the car door slowly and locked it up, picked up the bag of items from the trunk, and began to make his way inside the bunker.

When he reached his room, he laid Sammy down on his memory foam gently, ran a hand through his brown locks. He draped a blue baby blanket over him and put two pillows on both edges of the bed, and then he set out of the room to call Cas.

Cas picked up after the second ring.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas, man, where are you right now?"

"I am currently residing in Massachusetts. Why?"

"I need you to get here. To the bunker."

"That might take about a day, I believe. What's going on, Dean?"

"How do I put this?" Dean pursed his lips, glancing back at Sam. "You, uh… got any experience in babysitting?"

…

It was almost three in the morning when Dean found himself bouncing a bawling baby against his hip, standing half-asleep at the fridge, eyes half-mast and squinting against the light, head and ears aching. He reached in for the formula milk he made a couple of hours ago at the prospect of exactly a time like this.

When he stumbled back to his bed, he placed his hands under Sam's armpits and untangled him from himself, settled him on his lap, and then wrapped an arm around his tiny body. He put the feeder to his mouth, and the baby instantly calmed down, his high wails fading off into soft, small whimpers. Dean inhaled heavily, running a hand over his hair.

By the time he felt Sammy push the bottle away, he was falling asleep sitting up. His body sang with joy at the prospect of finally getting to be horizontal on its very comfy and beckoning plane. He put the feeder bottle on his bedside, too exhausted to bother going all the way down to refrigerate it again (he'd just sterilize it again and make another one tomorrow. Let all the microorganisms infest it).

He properly positioned the extra pillow on Sam's other side and then laid down on the bed, taking the baby down with him. He pulled Sammy close against his chest, arms around his shoulders and back (which almost completely covered him up. God, he was tiny), resting his cheek against his forehead. The baby gurgled, little hands touching over his face, his nose, his mouth. Dean opened his own heavy, aching eyes and looked down, his big doe eyes staring back up at him. He took his hands and pressed them to his lips, and then put them down, shifting the arm around him to encircle on top of Sammy's arm.

"Sleep," he mumbled, his voice groggy and rough with fatigue. He turned his head to kiss his forehead as he heard Sammy hum, before settling his cheek back against it, and then promptly fell into the sweet darkness.

…

The next morning, Dean opened his eyes to Sammy lying on his stomach beside him, struggling to raise himself up by his hands on Dean's chest. He shifted his head on his pillow, squinting, before becoming fully sobered at the sight, a mellow grin growing on his lips. When Sammy finally managed to get himself into a sitting position with a small baby grunt of effort, leaning his full weight against Dean's side, he laughed, awed and proud. Sammy stared down at his face with his large, round eyes, a small, brief quirk in the corner of his mouth at the sound of Dean's laugh. He patted down his hands on his abdomen, still half-grinning happily.

"That's my boy," he rumbled, still chuckling. He grabbed Sammy by the armpits, pressed his lips to his chipmunk, dimpled cheek before he lifted him onto his middle, setting his back against the thighs of his folded legs. "Morning, early bird."

Sammy smiled and fell forward, putting his weight on his fingers splayed over Dean's chest, before dropping to his elbows. Dean smiled back, craning his neck up to meet Sam's forehead with his, kissed his nose. The baby blinked, one hand rising to Dean's own nose.

"So what d'you wanna do today? You wanna dominate the world using your little puppy dog eyes?" Dean massaged his chubby legs, before moving down to his small feet. "Go to the zoo? The park? Make Cas tear out his hair when he comes by tonight?"

Sam let out a loud, excited squeal of laughter out of nowhere, back arching as his arms stretched out tautly in front of him. Dean chuckled, pulling him up higher to rub his nose against his. "Aha...so that's the plan for tonight, huh? You're an evil one." He tsked pitifully, shaking his head. "That poor bastard. Won't even know what's coming."

And then the baby took up from where Dean left off, babbling back random, nonsensical words and noises down at him. Dean feigned comprehension, his thumbs brushing over the sides of his fragile ribcage beneath his gray Batman shirt, nodding along in intervals with hums, throwing in intrigued, encouraging inquiries here and there. "Oh yeah? And then what happened?" Ba buh ga gu muh, ga ah gho… "Woah. No way. What'd you do then, Sammy? You kick his ass six ways to Sunday?" Aaagh bo muh ba ga guh.

Dean chuckled, kissing Sam's chin. "That's real awesome, buddy," he said roughly, stroking his fingers through the baby's unruly hair.

And then.

And then he felt an ache inside of him as he watched him, with his big hazel eyes looking down at him and his rosebud lips curving into a little smile, full of blind, innocent faith and reasonless adoration.

This faith that he broke, and this love that he lost, in the irony of loving him too damn much. He was selfish. Too selfish to let him go, to let himself lose him so fast and easy by sitting by and not doing a thing about it, this boy he… well, that he loved—beyond his ability to explain, beyond sense and reason, that he could barely bear to even think about living in a world without.

So he took it, the one way to do what he had always done, so that he could still keep doing what he had built his life around, which was to keep Sam alive and safe. And it was the wrong way, he knew, but he had failed one too many times at keeping him both (once more now at keeping him safe when that bastard that he had so stupidly trusted had betrayed them), and he had thought about how he just couldn't fucking do it again.

This tiny, innocent being in front of him… he was the same kid that he couldn't save from a fucking knife going into his spine at twenty-three, and then he made a deal to reverse that and as a result, left him all alone in the world, fresh meat to a demonic bitch and a fucked up destiny that he practically shoved him towards after he came back. He let him throw himself into Hell for an oblivious world that had never been kind to him, to either of them, and he couldn't get him out until he had already gone through two fucking centuries of pain and torture beyond human imagination. He couldn't save him from losing his soul, couldn't help him through the traumatic aftereffects of being in a cage with Lucifer for two and a half lifetimes. He let him take on the fucking trials, let him almost die again.

Sam told him, before he took them on, that he wanted to make it through alive, that he saw that light at the end of the tunnel (somehow, after everything) that Dean never did.

I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you...

And then, at the end of it all, he discovered that he had fucked up his little brother so much with the stuff he said that he was ready to die to make up for it, just because he didn't want to feel like he let Dean down again. When he heard Sam say a careless, purely confused, "so?" in response to the prospect of his death if he proceeded with the trials, Dean was sure something inside of him broke, the way it hurt to hear that lack of concern for his life, like it meant nothing to Sam, and seemed to expect it to mean nothing to Dean. He sounded like he couldn't understand why it should matter to either of them.

And then Sam chose to live for him, because Dean wanted him to. That was all it took for him to choose life again, because Dean told him hemattered to him above all else, and it was true. To Dean, everything else came after his little brother, and that included the world itself.

But then, in that hospital, he found out that Sam wanted to die. Just didn't want to be here anymore. And he had only recently found out that his brother was practically suicidal because of him, because of the way he made him feel, and there were too many things broken between them that they needed to put back together and he couldn't just have let him leave before they did that, and Sam had wanted to fucking live before this.

So after all of that, how could he have just let him go?

It was a horrible thing to do, letting a monster possess his brother's body without him knowing, he knew that, but the only other alternative was one that he couldn't even bear to consider.

He looked up at Sammy here, at this beautiful, smart, sweet baby that was never meant to even have any fucking chance at a good life, and who, in spite of it all, had grown up into the strongest, kindest and the most selfless man Dean had ever known. The more the years went by and the more shit that kept coming, Sam only grew stronger and kinder and more selfless.

And he wondered how he could have just pulled the plug on this very same baby in front of him right now, this baby that he still saw sometimes, even decades later, when he looked at his brother. How could he have done nothing to save him?

"You don't get it, do you?" Dean asked softly, gently grasped his small face in his hands. He swallowed. "I am afraid of—of being alone. You were right. But it's not… it's not just that. Being without you, Sammy... that's my alone. Take anyone from me, and I'll get by without em'. I always have. But you… not you. Never you. If you had died, you can be sure that I would have died too, because it's always gonna be you and me, Sammy, alive or dead. It's always gonna be you and me."

He would never have said these kinds of things out loud at any other time. He could never bring himself to, not to the Sam of today. But he wanted to let it out somewhere. He wanted to tell these things to Sammy while he still could, now, because he knew he would never be able to say these words to him when he could understand them.

"You're my kid. You're mine." His eyes burned, blinking as they blurred slightly. His jaw clenched to hold the tears back, and he was finding it hard to breathe through the sorrow and emotion he was trying to push down in his throat, in his chest. "And I refuse to bury you."

Sammy was staring down at him, his brows furrowing in distress, pink rosebud lips downturned. Dean realized that even if Sam couldn't understand what he was saying, he could still probably see and hear that Dean was upset, still recognize his facial expressions and the tone of his voice. And then he thought, shit, and tried to amend the situation. He rubbed a hand down Sam's back soothingly, the other down his arm.

"I'm sorry, buddy. Everything's fine, okay? Everything's fine. See?" Dean tried to smile at him, covering his hands wholly in his fists and shaking them lightly. It was either too late or it just didn't work, because Sam started whimpering, breaths hitching, eyes growing watery and face going bright pink, the onset of another complete bawling session. "Ah crap. I'm sorry."

When Sammy started full-out crying, Dean pulled him up higher on his torso until his face met the hollow of his own neck, which immediately grew wet, shuffled Sam's arms over his shoulders, and wrapped both of his own around his soft, frail body, one hand moving up to hold the back of his head. He pressed his lips to his warm shoulder, feeling the weight of guilt drop like lead in his gut. "It's okay. Everything's okay, kiddo. I've got you."

...

"Alright, little man," Dean murmured, bundling Sammy up in a towel and carrying him to the bed. Sam loathed bath time, particularly when he had to wash his face, which Dean understood because if someone wiped their giant hand down his face and he just had that damn habit of not keeping his eyes closed when he should, he would hate it too.

Sam's mouth had gotten all twisted, his eyebrows scrunched up, trying to turn his head away, and then he had tried to clean the soap off his face with both his palms, which didn't really work since he had had them down in the soapy bathwater the whole time before, which had promptly led to Dean obtaining severe damage to his hearing.

"You can't clean soap off with soap water, dummy." Dean then washed his eyes with clear water, and then drenched a washcloth in tap water and slid it down Sammy's closed eyes and face. He rocked back with the light push of Dean's hand on his face, eyes squeezed shut and lips pursed tightly, trying to throw it off of him in annoyance.

He also disliked it when another towel dangled over his face while Dean tried to dry his wet hair with it, whine-screeching in frustration as he tried to push it away with his pudgy hands, scowling at Dean disapprovingly. After putting the poor baby through that disastrous bathing session, Dean bent over the bed from where he knelt on the floor, blew a raspberry to the side of his neck and made him laugh from the belly.

Sam grasped at his face, small hands pinching skin, cooing, and then tugged at it feebly towards himself. Dean went along, tilting his head closer as if listening for a whisper. The baby touched his mouth beside the bridge of his nose and blew air on it, cheeks bloating up. Dean withdrew his head and looked down at him, amusement quirking his lips. Sammy looked back up at him with a toothless, innocent grin, as if waiting for Dean to have the same reaction that he did, completely unaware of how unsuccessful his attempt at imitating a raspberry was.

Dean clicked his tongue. "Nah. See, that's not how you do it," he says, his lips twitching. "This is how you do it." And then he dived down, wringing out every bit of laughter that he could out of the baby.

Author's Note: Hello!

This is...I don't know. So much schmoop...I can't believe I wrote this. I'm still not sure if this is a correct portrayal of a seven-month old baby despite all my research, so apologies to all those who see inaccuracies. I also hope that I kept Dean in character for the most part (under the circumstances). Canonically, we know he's awesome with kids, so I just thought he'd be really sweet to babies, especially the little brother he spent a lifetime taking care of, and even more so, during a time that they were so distant.

I hope you enjoyed this! It'll be a two-shot, and I have one scene or two left to write for the second part, so it might be, hopefully, completed next week. Thank you very much for reading! If you have a moment, I would love to hear your thoughts! And constructive criticism, as always, is welcome, as long as it's polite and respectful.