I don't own supernatural.

De is not younger Dean. Older Dean is just Dean.

Chapter 3 Chick Flick Moments

Dean was quiet for a few second after his young self left, but only because he was so stunned.

Sammy, his Sammy, had thought he didn't care? That was why Sammy had stopped trying to cuddle up to him for absolutely no reason? That was why he stopped going to Dean with all of his little problems?

Gabriel was right; this knowledge would've changed the entire course of their lives. Hell, if Sam had known Dean cared, he probably wouldn't have left for Stanford in the first place!

That had put the biggest dent in their relationship (aside from the whole Ruby thing, of course) and Dean had always blamed Sam for it. But if Sammy thought Dean didn't care, Dean couldn't fault him for wanting to leave.

He slid off the couch and squatted in front of his newly made tiny little brother. God, Sam was so small.

"Sammy," he tried. "Come on, baby, please look at me," he practically begged.

The name had just slipped out. How long had it been since he called his Sammy "baby" as anything other than a joke? Too long, that's how long.

How had he forgotten that Sammy was his baby? His little boy to be taken care of, treasured, and cherished beyond all else.

All those years ago, when their father had ordered him to back off, why hadn't he been an eye servant? It was possible; he had gone behind his dad's back before without the man ever knowing because Dean did as he was told while John was watching.

Sam reluctant met his gaze. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I should've been stronger. I should have been able to take care of myself. I should've known you wouldn't just stop caring. I was just a stupid kid, Dean. I-"

Dean cut him off there. Sam thought he needed to apologize? After all this was Dean's fault?

He had forgotten this side of Sam. The side that Sam didn't often let him see anymore. The fragile side that was still the little boy, the baby boy, that Dean had taken care of all his life.

"Sammy, I do not want to hear one more apology out of you. How can you think this is your fault? Never mind; you simply have guilt issues. You'd take responsibility for me breaking the first seal if I let you," Dean interrupted gently.

It had been too long since he took the time to be gentle like this with Sammy. Maybe all of this was stemming from the facts he had learned, but he also thought some of it was because his Sammy was so tiny again.

Lord above, but he loved being able to pick up Sammy.

He did just that, standing and lifting Sam into the air before sitting back down and placing Sam in his lap.

Sam had opened his mouth (probably to explain exactly how Dean breaking the seal was his fault) but Dean hushed him again before he could talk.

"Just listen for a few seconds, ok?" he requested.

Sam nodded uncertainly.

"Right," Dean continued. "I never told you, but when we moved to this town, Dad gave me new orders. Before we moved here, it was always just to take care of you, but Dad wanted me to do something different this time."

"Dad told me to back off or I was going to get you killed. I was babying you too much, he told me, and you were never going to be able defend yourself if I kept it up. If you ever got separated from us, you were going to be killed because I never let you do anything for yourself."

"And I listened to him, of course. I was such an idiot. The man may have thought he love us, but his actions really say differently," Dean snorted. "Hey, he's alive in this time; do you think he'll show up so I can punch him?" he asked eagerly, breaking the solemn tone of their conversation.

"Dean," Sam admonished. "You can't punch Dad just 'cause you're mad at him."

"Sammy?" Dean asked, ignoring Sam's reply. Something in his voice reinstated the seriousness of the talk.

"Yeah?" Sam replied.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know. I never wanted you to feel like I didn't want you. Never," Dean said. "I don't even have an excuse. I should've told Dad to f off. I should never have made you feel like I didn't want you."

"It's ok, Dean," Sam assured earnestly. He reached up and patted Dean's check. "It was a long time ago. Besides, knowing that Dad told you to do it…..it changes a lot of things, y'know?"

"I used to practically be his slave," Dean snorted with disgust. "I did what I was told without thinking about it. I always did what I was told….."

"Because you felt like the one time you did disobey you almost got me killed," Sam nodded.

Dean couldn't look at him. Sam didn't have the same problem and put his hands on Dean's checks, gently pulling his head to look at him.

Dean could remember an equally tiny Sammy doing the same thing many times over the years. It brought such a rush of protectiveness, love, and relief that Dean was nearly stunned.

This Sammy he knew how to deal with. Dean had raised the little boy that made Dean focus on him even when Dean didn't feel good enough to look him in the eye; he knew everything about that Sammy.

The Sam he had picked up from Stanford; that was a different story. That Sam shut him out, didn't let him help. That Sam thought Dean had stopped caring.

This had to be fixed. Preferably starting now, though Dean knew it would take a lot of time and effort to make up for the pain of so many years.

But that was ok. They had all the time in the world (they were currently stuck in the past, for goodness sake) and Dean was more than willing to put in the effort.

"That wasn't your fault," Sam informed him, his little face deadly serious. "No matter what Dad said, it wasn't your fault. You were, like, eight, De."

"I still shouldn't have left you alone in the room. I knew that," Dean protested.

"You were eight," his baby emphasized. "You know what I did when I was eight?"

"Dude, I know everything you did when you were eight," Dean grinned.

"Though right now I'm pretty sure you're talking about that time you thought it would be a good idea to leave the motel room in the middle of the night while I was sleeping," he added. "So not cool, by the way. It scared the crap out of me to wake up and find you gone."

"My point," Sam said dryly.

"But I didn't nearly get killed because of that," Dean dissented in confusion.

"I hate that you don't know this, but you didn't bother looking before you streaked across the street, dipstick," Sam snorted. "You almost got hit by a car. It was about this close," he held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, "to hitting you."

"Really?" Dean confirmed. "Huh."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Scared the crap out of me."

"Guess that makes us about even," Dean surmised. "You scared me, so I scared you right on back."

"Mmmm," Sam hummed. "I'm tired, Dean."

He snuggled into Dean's chest and settled his head on Dean's shoulder. It had been so long since he did that. Even when he was small enough to, he had always refrained. He had probably thought Dean didn't want him to do it.

That wasn't a pleasant idea.

"You ok?" he inquired, suddenly remembering that Sam had probably been knocked around pretty good by the clowns.

"Uh, nothing life threatening," Sam dismissed. "A couple a broken ribs, I'm gonna have bruises on my face tomorrow, and I think one of them broke my hand," his Sammy frowned. "Why does everything like breaking my hand? It's really not cool to have your hand broken over and over again."

"No chiz Sherlock," Dean snarked. "Let's take a look."

He stood, sat Sam back down on the couch, and started pulling his brother's shirt over his head.

Sam squeaked rather undignified-ly. Was that even a word? Did he really care? He decided the answer to both was "no" and continued on with his work.

He carefully felt down Sam's ribs, checking for breaks.

"Yeah," he finally decided. "Two broken ribs and your hand is definitely broken. You could've said something before, you know?" he half scolded. "This whole discussion could've waited until you'd been cleaned up."

"It doesn't really hurt," Sammy shrugged.

"Which is a good part of the reason why you should've said something," Dean reiterated. "Nothing hurts after Hell everything is kinda pale in comparison. You can't judge by how much pain you feel anymore, Sam. Stay here; I'm going to get the kit," he instructed.

Supernatural

De was sitting on Sammy's bed with his baby boy propped up against his chest, and a book in his hands when his older self's head popped around the door.

"Where's the kit?" he asked, like De was supposed to know what kit he was talking about.

They had lots of kits. They had a medical kit, a weapons kit, a pranking kit, hell, he even had a kit designed to keep Sammy occupied.

"Which one?" he returned.

His older self seemed momentarily startled, but recovered quickly.

"The medical one. I checked in the bathroom, but it isn't where we normally keep it," he answered.

"That's 'cause Sammy's the only one who's been needing it. We've just been keeping it in here," De replied. "It's under the desk," he waved vaguely. "Why do you need it?"

"Apparently Sam didn't think it was important to mention that he managed to break a couple rubs and bust his hand," Dean told him distractedly as he bent to grab the kit.

"What?" De questioned in a suddenly deadly voice.

"Yeah," his older self obviously didn't pick up on the change of mood. "His pain scale's really screwed up, and he used to judge how badly he was hurt by the amount of pain he was in. He obviously can't do that anymore, because he probably wouldn't do anything until he was dieing."

The older man continued to rummage through the kit for whatever he needed to take care of Sammy.

De growled a little. That was what had gotten his baby into all this trouble in the first place.

"You stay here, Sammy," he told his little brother gently. He ran his hand through his little brother's hair, and then stood.

He left the room quietly, then drastically changed his posture.

He was not allowing his baby boy to keep injuries to himself anymore. It had officially been promoted the very worst thing Sammy could do.

He stalked into the living room, a thundercloud seeming to hover over his head.

His little boy shot to his feet as soon as he caught sight of him.

De was pissed, and he was unsurprised that Sam had picked up on it.

De stormed over to his baby and spun him around by the shoulders.

He landed one solid swat, then spun Sam back around and tipped his chin up to meet his eyes.

Sam's eyes were wide with surprise and maybe a little bit of fear. He was rubbing his backside, even though Dean knew it couldn't have hurt very bad. He had taken into account that Sam was injured when he delivered the swat.

"You do not hide it from me when you're hurt, you understand?" he demanded. "Never again, Sam. Never."

Sam face softened as he realized why De was so panicked and stern about this.

"It isn't that bad. Really, it hardly hurts," Sam insisted.

"I don't care," De ground out. "I want to know if you've got a freaking paper cut, are we reaching an agreement yet?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sammy's eyes were puzzled. "Why do you care? I mean, it's not like I'm your Sam, and I never will be your Sam, so why do you care?"

De sat down and put Sam on his lap. He took hold of Sam's chin again and made sure he had his baby's full attention before he continued.

"Is your name Sam Winchester?" he started. He knew the answer, of course, but he wanted to get a point across.

"What? Of course it is," Sammy answered puzzledly.

"Just so long as your name is Sam Winchester, no matter what version of him you are, you are my baby. You understand? Just because you're from a different version of the future doesn't meant you aren't my baby. You're always my baby. End of story."

"Alright then," Sam drawled, pulling out the "al" sound in a tone that said he thought De was being weird.

De's older self reentered the room before he could respond.

"Shirt," Dean instructed, gesturing upwards with his chin since his hands were full of medical supplies.

De took the liberty of removing the encompassing garment for his baby brother.

He whistled at the dark bruising visible all over Sam's torso.

"What were you doing?" he asked.

"I got beat up by clowns," Sam pouted. "I don't like clowns."

"You have a freaking phobia of them," Dean snorted. "I think saying you don't like them is a little bit of an understatement."

"When did you get a phobia?" De demanded. "Why do you have a phobia? What'd they do to you?"

"One question at a time," Sam muttered, still seated in De's lap as older Dean was tending his injuries. "Phobia started when I was around…twelve, I think. And no one did anything to me. I just decided I didn't like clowns, that's all."

"Uh-hu," both Dean's mockingly agreed. "You don't 'just decide' not to like anything."

They glanced at each other, startled, then continued. "So why?"

"Really, why does everything I do have to have some hidden meaning behind it?" Sam snapped.

It was enough to get Dean to back off, but De wasn't taking that crap.

"I don't know; why don't you tell me?" he requested.

"This isn't because I left you at Plucky's, is it?" Dean suddenly cut in.

"What? No," Sam said too quickly. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you practically started hyperventilating when I mentioned the place," Dean said flatly.

"He did?" De asked in alarm. "What happened there?"

"Nothing," Sam sighed as he squirmed a little. "I….I just…..it's stupid."

"Nothing that makes you this upset is stupid," De countered.

"Dude, you've had this phobia for eighteen years; I think that counts as something that definitely isn't stupid," Dean added. He was finished tending to Sam's injuries now and abruptly sat down on the floor in front of Sam and De.

Sam continued wriggling for a few seconds under their combine scrutiny, then finally gave in. "There was this one clown there once who spent the whole time I was there just staring at me," he started.

"It was freaking me out, and I was pretty sure that wasn't normal or good, so I decided to leave early and go home. It was easy enough to sneak out of the place, but I caught sight of the guy following me on my way home. It took me forever to lose the dude. I was scared out of my mind by the time I finally managed to get back home, it was dark, and you still weren't back yet. I've been uncomfortable around any kind of clown ever since," he finished.

"Why wasn't I told?" both Dean's finally inquired in deadly quiet voices.

"Because you would've killed him," Sam snorted. "I didn't want you taking that risk. I did call the police on the dude, though," he defended.

No one spoke for a second.

"Sam, you gotta stop with all these secrets," Dean finally commanded gently. "How am I supposed to protect you if I don't know anything's wrong?"

"It was years ago, Dean; I didn't think it matter anymore," Sam stated.

"Anything that ever hurt you, all the way back as far as you can remember, it always matters," De cut in. "Anything that made you feel even slightly uncomfortable, anyone who said something nasty; anything."

He couldn't see his baby boy's face (it was turned towards his older self) but Dean's expression suddenly softened.

"You're tired, Sammy," he stated. "It's late. We should go to sleep."

"Good idea," De agreed. "You guys can take Dad's bedroom. You remember where it is?"

"Yeah," his little boy confirmed tiredly through a yawn.

Dean hoisted himself to his feet and reached down for Sam.

De boosted Sam into Dean's arms. Lifting his baby was much easier than it should've been. Sam was light. It couldn't be healthy for someone to weigh that little.

De saw a frown flicker across his older self's face as he came to the same conclusion.

They locked eyes over Sam's head, and a resolution to fix this problem passed between them.

But that would have to start tomorrow, because right now their little boy was dozing against Dean's shoulder.

It was time to sleep.

….That took forever. I'm sorry. We're moving again, and I've been spending 5+ hours a day either getting ready to move, or babysitting.

It isn't like last time we moved either. For one thing, we're moving 14 hours away this time.

For another, we own what should be considered a library of books. My mom didn't want to have to move them this time, so we've been trying to ebay them off. The problem is, all our good computers belong to our school, and we lost them at the start of summer.

The computers we have now take about fifteen minutes to save one listing.

This is also part of why this took so long. We only have one charger for both slow computers, and my mom and I are almost constantly using the internet. It means only one of us can be on the computer at a time.

On another note, I have recently been informed that I look like a Barbie. (blinks in confusion) I don't wear skirts often (I like being able to move however I want to) but I put one on the other day. I also wore a tank top and heals (I never wear heals either). I went to ask my mom if the skirt was too short (we have very strict rules about that kind of thing) and she tells me that I look great. Then she informes me that I look like a Barbie. Ok…thanks, I guess?

I'm going to have to share a room in our new house. My younger sister is excited about it, but I'm kind of iffy. I like having my own space, y'know?

However, this is the way we're going to get the least amount of fighting. If my two youngest sisters shared, there would never be peace in the house.

Our new town is going to be really small. Like, seventh graders are high schoolers because the sports teams wouldn't be big enough if it was only 9-12, small. I'm kind of excited about that, but I'm also a little nervous. It's one of those "everyone knows everyone else, and you can't kiss someone without the whole town being privy to it" kinda places, as far as I understand.

If I don't fit in with the kids, I'm gonna be in trouble because there's no one else around to hang with.

I make friends pretty easily, though, so I should be good.

Anyway, thanks for waiting so long people.