Back in Time

Set after 5x05 "Fallen Idols"

Chapter One

Dean Winchester grabbed his soap, shampoo and a fresh change of clothes, and headed for the bathroom, leaving his little brother Sam sleeping in one of the motel beds.

Kid could use some sleep, Dean thought as he turned the shower on. Halfway through his shower, he felt something hum through his body. He stopped and looked around, but nothing else happened so he shrugged it off. A couple minutes later, he was rinsing the last of the shampoo out of his hair when he heard the curtain being pulled halfway open.

"Dude!" yelled Dean. "What the hell? Some privacy, if you don't—"

Dean's voice froze in his throat as he looked at his intruder. It was a boy about thirteen years old. He had short brown hair, bright green eyes, and freckles.

No, Dean thought. It couldn't be.

But what really nailed his realization home was the amulet hanging from the kid's neck. Dean looked into his thirteen-year-old self's face, shocked.

"Dad!" the kid yelled. He darted from the bathroom.

"Whoa, wait!" Dean yelled. He turned the shower off and hastily pulled on his jeans. He darted into the other room and only had a moment to register that it wasn't the motel room before a gun was shoved into his face. The man holding the gun stared him down, anger in his face.

Dad, Dean realized.

"Who the hell are you?" John growled.

Oh, I'm your son from the future, Dean thought. Somehow, he knew that conversation wouldn't go over too good.

Dean put his hands up, willing his father to calm down. "Look, this is all a big mistake."

"Really?" John drawled as he began backing Dean out of the bedroom and into the living room/kitchen.

"Trust me, you do not want to shoot me," Dean said as he stumbled backwards through the doorway. "Look, I can explain. I'm—"

"Dean!"

Dean turned towards the voice to see Sam—his twenty-six-year-old Sam—tied to a chair behind him. There were welts on his jaw from small, yet strong, punches, and blood leaked from a cut on his forehead.

"Sammy!" Dean yelled. Forgetting about the gun aimed at his head, he rushed over to Sam, kneeling in front of the chair. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" He grabbed at the ropes, but they wouldn't budge. "Damn, those are tight. Dad always could tie a good knot. What happened to you?"

"You jumped me while I was asleep," Sam answered.

Dean looked at him, trying to hide a smile. "You got side-lined by a thirteen-year-old?"

"It's you, Dean," Sam told him.

"I know, but he's half your age, bitch."

"I was asleep, jerk."

Dean looked around, only seeing John and Young Dean. "Dude, where's you?"

Sam looked down at the floor, his face flushing. "In the closet."

Dean smiled. "What's the matter, Sammy? Big, bad hunters scare you?" He laughed.

"Shut up," grumbled Sam.

"Or maybe you saw Ronald McDonald," Dean teased.

"Dude, immature much?" Sam said. "Don't you think we have more important issues?"

Dean looked back to see a very confused John and Dean. "Oh, I completely forgot."

"What's going on?" demanded John. "Who are you?"

"I think you already know," said Dean. "I'm Dean. That's Sam."

John just blinked. "What?"

"We're from the end of 2009," said Dean. "I know you're not gonna believe us, but we can prove it."

"If you're me, then where is this?" asked Young Dean, pulling out his amulet.

Dean closed his eyes. "I was hoping you weren't gonna ask that." He looked at Dean. "This isn't gonna help my case, but I don't have it."

"Then you're not me," said Young Dean. "I never take it off."

"Because Sammy gave it to me when I was twelve," said Dean.

"And I got it from Bobby," said Sam.

"The reason I don't have it right now is because where we're from, we're, uh…kinda in the middle of an apocalypse," Dean explained. "Our angel buddy, Castiel, is out looking for God. He needed the one amulet in the world that would glow in His presence, and it just happened to be mine."

"Please," Sam pleaded. Dean looked back at him to see Sam fixing Young Dean with a look that couldn't be mistaken for anything else: the Puppy-Dog Eyes. "Please, believe us."

Young Dean's eyes widened little by little as he lowered the shotgun. "Dad, it's him."

"What?" asked John, glancing at his eldest son.

"Dad, it's Sammy!" said Young Dean. "Trust me, no one else can make that face so good."

"That's what you're gonna go on?" said John.

"Here," said Dean as he began to approach them.

"Don't you come near him, you son of a bitch!" yelled John.

"Relax," said Dean. "I'm not." He slowly bent down and rolled up one of his jeans' legs. He turned his foot so they could see the red sun-like blotch on his skin just above his outside ankle on his right leg.

Young Dean stared and lifted his right pants' leg to reveal the same birthmark. John seemed to lower his gun an inch.

"You're thirteen, right?" said Dean. Young Dean nodded. "Remember that werewolf that sunk its claws into you before Dad shot it?" The kid shuddered. Dean turned to his side, moving his left arm across his chest. Three faint, pale lines stood out on his ribs. Young Dean lifted up his shirt to reveal the similar marks. Dean stared at Young Dean until he turned to John.

John slowly lowered the gun. "Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said.

"Hey, Sammy, it's okay," said John. "You can come out now."

The closet door burst open, and a short kid with shaggy dark hair that came to the top of his ears came out. He had dark eyes that scowled at John and Young Dean.

"'Bout time," grumbled Young Sam, Sammy, as he strode over to them. "I can take care of myself. I'm not a kid."

"Yes, you are," said John. "You just started hunting a few months ago."

"So?" said Sammy.

"So, you're my son, and you'll do what I say," ordered John.

Sammy clenched his jaw and looked down at the floor. "Yes, sir."

Sam laughed a little, amazed at the stubborn streak that he seemed to have been born with, but he stopped as they looked at him. "I'm sorry. This isn't really funny."

Sammy looked at him curiously. "So…you're me?"

"Yeah," said Sam.

Sammy approached Sam cautiously, his fist bawled in preparation. He stood right in front of Sam's chair, staring at him. He looked at the deep freckle just next to Sam's nose, an exact replica of the one on his own face. He reached forward and yanked Sam's left collar away from his neck to look at another freckle just above his collarbone. Sammy pulled his own collar away to look down at the same mark.

Sammy moved around to the back of Sam, who tilted his head forward so they could look at the birthmark. As John and Young Dean circled around to the back of Sam, Sammy used his hand to brush the hair away from Sam's neck. At the base of his hairline was a small red line that drew itself horizontally across his skin, bisected in the middle by an oval that ran the length of the line. The three of them walked around to face the two older Winchesters.

"Surprise," smirked Dean. He grabbed a silver knife from the table of weapons and cut through the ropes on Sam's wrists. Sam bent over and worked through the ropes on his right ankle while Dean did his left. Sam stood up, tossing the rope onto the chair.

"Whoa!" Sammy said. The brothers looked at him.

"What?" asked Sam.

Sammy looked between Sam and Dean. "You're taller than him!"

Sam looked over at Dean and laughed. "Yeah, I am. It's 'cause Dean never stopped eating junk food instead of vegetables."

Dean glared at him. "Hey, don't you be filling mini-me's head with that crap."

"Don't worry," said Sam. "I don't think you're about to give up burgers."

"Hell, yeah, I'm not," said Young Dean. The older boys laughed. The five of them sat down in the kitchen at the table.

"How old are you two?" asked John.

"Thirty," said Dean.

"Twenty-six," said Sam.

"Wow," said Young Dean.

John pointed at Dean's torso. "What happened to you?"

Dean looked at the tattoo on his chest. "Anti-possession tattoo. Sam's got one, too." Dean turned to show them his left shoulder, where the handprint was still branded on his skin. "That's a little 'hello' from Castiel."

"What'd he do?" asked Sammy.

Dean hesitated. "He saved me." He got up and came back with a shirt on.

"So, what's been going on, you know…in the future?" asked John.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, suddenly very cautious. Anything they said would reveal something the others should not know. Dad went to hell for Dean, Sam has psychic abilities, Dean went to hell for Sam, Sam is infected with demon blood, Dean is Michael's vessel, Sam is Lucifer's vessel, they started the apocalypse…none of that would be a good thing to let slip.

"One thing we've learned is to not mess with fate," said Dean. "Trust me, I tried to save our family, and it did not work."

"What?" asked John.

"A few months ago—for us, that is—that angel Castiel took me back to 1973," Dean told them. "Remember that dazed guy at the diner that followed you to the car lot?"

John's eyes widened. "That was you?" He took in Dean's face. "Oh, my gosh. That was you. I recognize you now." He looked out the window, where the black 1967 Chevy Impala sat. "You were the one that convinced me to buy the Impala?"

"Well, I couldn't let you buy that piece of crap over my baby," said Dean. "Imagine what I would look like driving around in a VW bus."

"Your baby?" asked Young Dean.

"That's right," said Dean. "We get the car."

"Awesome," said Young Dean. "Sammy get anything?"

"Besides Dad's stubborn streak?" suggested Dean. He laughed as Sam rolled his eyes.

"College," said Sam. The other three looked at him. "Stanford."

"Really?" asked John, a slight smile stretching the corner of his mouth. "What happened to hunting?"

Here we go, thought Dean.

"I quit," said Sam. "Went away to college for two years, got a girlfriend, scored a 174 on the LSAT—"

"Is that good?" asked Sammy.

Sam smiled. "Scary good."

"So, what happened?" asked John. "It sounds as though you're hunting again."

Sam nodded sadly. "Four years ago in 2005—November 2, 2005, to be exact—I had just gotten back to the apartment after helping Dean with a hunt…and I found my girlfriend Jessica on the ceiling."

John's eyes widened. "You mean…like your mother?"

"Exactly like Mom," Sam told him. "Fire and all."

"Oh, Sam, I'm sorry," said John. "Please tell me that we found it."

"Oh, we found it," said Dean. "A Yellow-Eyed Demon named Azazel. Killed the son of a bitch myself."

"You did?" asked John.

"And I didn't do it alone," said Dean, looking at his father.

"When?"

"Two years ago."

"Did you find out why it killed Mary?"

Dean glanced at Sam, and they shared an uneasy look. "Uh, no, we didn't."

"You did, didn't you?" said John.

"We can't tell you," said Sam, praying Dean wouldn't cave under John's authority like he always did.

"Dean, tell me," said John.

"Trust me, Dad, you do not want to know this," said Dean, sparing a small glance at Sammy.

"Dean—"

"Drop it, Dad, please," pleaded Dean.

John clenched his jaw. "Fine. What did we do after the demon was dead?"

"Um…we…"

Sam interrupted Dean. "Another long story for another time."

"So, how did you get here?" asked John.

"It must've been one of the angels," said Sam. "They're the only ones who can travel through time."

"Probably Zachariah, the bastard," grumbled Dean. "Although, what lesson I'm supposed to learn here, I have no idea."

"Lesson?" asked Young Dean.

"Yeah, I'm not exactly cooperating, so if they need to get a message across, they either pluck me through time or screw with our lives."

"You're working with angels?" asked John.

"Don't get your hopes up," said Sam. "They're nothing but a bunch of self-righteous dicks."

"Well, most of them are," said Dean. "Castiel and Anna are okay. Well, Anna's more than okay…" Dean smiled with a faraway look on his face.

"You're telling me you hooked up with an angel?" asked John. Dean smiled and nodded. "Should've known your obsession with girls wouldn't end at puberty."

Sam laughed. "You have no idea."

They all laughed until a bang echoed in the room. The door burst open, and a man stood there with black eyes. He glanced down at the salt lining the doorway and smiled. A wind kicked up from outside, and the salt began to blow away.

"Sam, salt gun!" Dean yelled. He and Sam bounded up as John pulled the younger brothers to the side of the room. Sam grabbed the salt gun as Dean grabbed a flask of holy water. John pulled out a gun, aiming it at the demon.

"Don't shoot him," Sam warned.

"I know, Sam!" John retorted.

The salt line broke, and the possessed man bounded into the room with a snarl. Sam brought the gun up and fired a round off, littering the man's chest with rock salt. The man raised his arm and the gun was flung out of Sam's hand. Dean flung the flask at the demon, dowsing him in holy water. Smoke rose as the demon screamed. Sam took the opportunity to rush the demon. He landed a right jab and a left uppercut before the demon kicked him in the gut.

But Dean was right there to drive an elbow into the demon's nose. He drove his knee into the guy's gut, making him double over. Sam grabbed the demon by one arm and Dean grabbed the other. They forced him up against the wall.

"Exorcizamus te," Sam recited through clenched teeth, "omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Perditionis venenum propinare. Vade satana inventor et magister…"

Sam continued to recite the exorcism as the demon flinched and convulsed. As Sam spoke the last word, the demon screamed as the black smoke flew out of his mouth. It soared out through the door, and Sam slammed it shut as Dean fixed the salt line. The host lay on the floor, breathing hard, but unconscious.

"Wow…" muttered John. Sam and Dean looked at him. "You boys make one hell of a team."

"We learned from the best," said Dean, wincing as an unbearable pain sliced through his stomach.

"Dean!" Sammy yelled. They turned to see Young Dean unconscious on the floor, a machete stuck through his stomach.

"No!" John yelled.

"The demon flung it at him with his mind," stuttered Sammy. "I…I couldn't…"

"Ah!" Dean yelled as he collapsed. Sam knelt over him, watching as a line of red blossomed from his stomach, exactly where the machete was in Young Dean.

"No!" Sam yelled.

"Sammy…save…him…" Dean gasped. "Only…way…" His eyelids fluttered and drifted closed.

"Dean, no!" Sam yelled. He rushed over to Young Dean. "How? I don't—"

"Step back," came a deep voice behind them.

Sam turned and saw Castiel in the room. He immediately pulled John and Sammy away from Young Dean's dying body.

"No!" John yelled. "No!"

"He's an angel!" Sam yelled. "He can help."

Castiel knelt gracefully next to Young Dean's body and eased the machete out of the frail body. The blood started flowing freely. Castiel placed a hand over Young Dean's heart. An amber glow emanated from his palm and enveloped the thirteen-year-old. The blood disappeared, and Young Dean sat up with a gasp. His eyes found Castiel, and he jumped up, flinging himself away from the angel.

"What the hell is going on?" said Young Dean.

"Dean!" said Sam as he headed for the older of the two. He nudged Dean, smiling, as Dean moaned and opened his eyes. "You're okay."

"How did you do it?" asked Dean, sitting up. He spotted Castiel. "Never mind." He stood up. "Did you put us here?"

"No," said Castiel.

"Zachariah?" asked Sam.

"No," intoned Castiel solemnly. "It was Lucifer."