Foreword:

The Winchester brothers are delving in on a case of the mysterious disappearance and death of a scientist and possible Man of Letters, whose time and time travel experiments were suddenly brought to a halt.

A defective time machine. The suburbs of Birmingham, England. 1982.

Young Nicholas James Bates [Nick Rhodes] has been forced to put his plans of achieving fast stardom due to a debilitating illness. Without a diagnosis to shed light on his symptoms, there is no hope for the boy or the band.

Prologue

The dark warehouse smelled of rust, mold and mice. Dean Winchester pointed the fading beam of his flash light to the ghostly structures of rusted metal shelves. The orange light danced over various jars covered in thick dust and matted cobweb.

"Nothing to see here, Sammy"

On the other side, Sam nodded, moving his flashlight to see where he stepped, his foot caught on the corner of a desk. He pointed his flashlight at it. "I guess you should take a look at this" the desk was littered with boxes and old documents, most of them covered in dust, and mice droppings, gnawed all over and in a bad state of rot, but some were readable.

Dean strode over. "Ugh, stinks of pee in here!"

"These are 'top secret' files" said Sam, making a point of pointing his flash light at the fading stamps on several documents on the desk and the boxes.

"Well, take whatever's salvageable and let's get outta here"

Blue lights and sirens blared in the close distance. Sam and Dean grabbed as many boxes they could carry, including a strange trunk with some initials carved on it.

"This is the Police, you are now surrounded. Evacuate the building immediately!"

"We're in the shit, Sammy!" Dean ducked behind the shelves, along with his brother. Sam bit his lip. He slowly pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial for Bobby. He was soon to answer, as he was expecting their call.

"Bobby, we need backup! The police is onto us!"

A helicopter swept overhead.

"Dammit idjits! Can you hold 'em for five minutes?"

"Yeah, yeah, I think so"

"Resistance is futile. Evacuate the building now!" the police.

"What'd he say?"

"We need to survive the police for five minutes"

"Damn it!" Dean ducked lower, "any brilliant ideas?"

"We can hide as long as we can—shh—listen"

The footfalls of heavily uniformed men. Clicks and whispers. The helicopter.

"I think they're in here" Sam paled. Time to think faster. "Okayokayokay…um…over there, quick!"

Dean nodded soldierly. The brothers crept to the underside of a stairwell behind some large tanks.

"Surrender and evacuate the premises!"

It was a long wait. Armed police officers in full tactical gear prowled the warehouse, the helicopter hovered over the warehouse and the patrol cars surrounded the front. Sam's phone buzzed in his hand.

"Oh fuck, it's Amelia!" he whispered. At the same time, Dean's phone came to life.

"Bobby" he got the call. "Great timing Bobby, we're in the deepest shit—"

"I sent Amelia to get you she should be right `round the back…look for a red pickup truck. Good luck"

"Sam, he's sent Amelia"

Sam's eye slit up, but he still looked positively fraught.

"She's round the back, come on" Dean grabbed the boxes and Sam the trunk, leaving some of the papers behind as they crept to the back very slowly and carefully.

Something fell behind them and there was shooting.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Through here, come on Sam!" Dean practically dragged his little brother to the rear exit, making it through with just enough seconds from gunshot.

There it was, the pickup truck and Amelia with the window down, waving her hand impatiently at the brothers. They dumped the boxes in the back and got in.

"No time to explain, let's go!" Sam said, breathlessly.

"Bobby's told me" said Amelia. Her eyes darting from Sam, to the rearview mirror as she started the pickup. "Well fasten your seat belts"

"We're gonna have to come back for my car!" Dean said.

"We will, Dean in the meantime, LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!"

"Omigod…I am a criminal"

"We're ethical criminals" Sam said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Sam, baby, we're escaping the police!"

"Calm down cowgirl" Dean scoffed, "we are the good guys, alright?"

Amelia shook her head. "I will NOT calm down! We are cri-mi-nals!" With the helicopter on pursuit and two patrol cars after them, Amelia drove the pickup into the dark of the woods. They could hear the helicopter stirring the wind, making the trees shudder and sway their branches overhead, leaves raining acorns bombarding the windshield. The pickup barged its way through the trees and finally into a closed road which she followed aimlessly.

"Think we lost 'em?" Dean.

Sam twisted his body to look behind them. "I think so…I don't see any lights… wait—"

The blue and red lights appeared to retreat into the woods. They drove for another while, now having lost the police. Amelia drove them to the bunker.

"What was that all about!" and she could finally scream.

Dean only rose his eyebrows and got off the pickup to get the stuff out of the rear and into the bunker.

"We've been investigating the archives of the work of a man who disappeared in nineteen-forty-three" Sam said, trying to calm her down, "we seem to find more questions than answers"

"Is this what you normally do?" she still looked exasperated.

"Well, we don't always call police attention…not anymore anyway…"

"Not anymore? What do you mean, who are you Sam Winchester?" Amelia crossed her arms.

"We've had our…brushes with the police on some cases before…but we mostly work WITH the police…" Sam didn't know what to say, he was groping for words.

"I just don't get you Sam…" Amelia shook her head, and hugged him. "Please promise me you'll be more careful from now on"

"I…I will" Sam lied. "Sorry about all this okay? We'll have a nice barbeque on Sunday and hopefully forget all about this…"

"Good night, Sam" They kissed and Amelia got back in the truck, driving off with the headlights pointed home. She had to face her dad though, so Sam was a bit worried about Sunday. He just didn't know what was about to happen in the next twelve hours.

Back in the bunker, Dean and Cas were sat side by side in the living room, as the TV droned on a rerun of a game show.

"Sam"

"Hey Cas…"

"So you good? I mean, you and your girlfriend?"

"I think so" Sam said, he cleared his throat but said nothing when the angel rested his head on his brother's shoulder. "I uh…I'm going to see check these boxes"

Sam quietly left the angel and his brother and dug into the first box containing documents. It was a metal box, with a lock on it. Sam had no problem breaking it with his bare hands as it was so rusty it basically fell off with a bit of forcing. The smell of mildew was potent, but other than that, the documents were good.

Sam brought all of their salvaged 'clues' to the office which was really his corner of the table. Firstly he noticed that all of these documents had the initials B.W. at the bottom. The box containing the documents was marked B.W. and so was the trunk.

If he was on the right track, then they might be on the trace of a time traveler, or even a Man of Letters whose experiments went wrong or maybe, forced to abandon.

Chapter 1

The soft ticking of the keys under Sam's strong fingers broke the otherwise quiet of a late night in the bunker. The younger Winchester glanced tiredly at the corner of the screen, seeing that the clock had only moved forward a few minutes. He rubbed his eyes and sighed, taking another look over his latest annotations, scrawled on yellow paper notepad, he yawned and got back to his laptop. It was 1:04 AM and the rest of the night ahead looked unpromising, the research seemed to be stuck.

Well, good-fucking-luck Sammy…

Nothing about a trunk with a strange apparatus inside and a carving reading B.W. on the top, which is what they now had their hands on. Apparently, it was a time machine, constructed in the year 1940, but, a myth nonetheless that our Sammy, Sam Winchester, was trying to debunk…or prove its verity.

Strange…Sam finally found something that could point them in the right direction, an archive of experiments that took place in the year 1940 and were never completed: all under the initials B. Yawning yet again, Sam clicked on the archive. A series of scans of newspaper clippings and documents with 'RESTRICTED' stamped on them came up on the screen. There were hundreds of them. Sam read through at least twenty before the clock hit 3 AM and he fell asleep on his chair, waking with a start around 8. His laptop was still on.

"Got anything Sammy?" Dean was just out of bed it seemed. Tousled blonde hair, tee shirt and boxers, yep, he was just emerging. He moved toward the kitchen and started the coffee.

Sam cleared his throat. "Well, I found some archives. Apparently, this guy, B.W., was working with some very complicated stuff; most of these documents are 'restricted' found 'em on Deep Web depositories"

Dean looked blankly at his brother, then nodded very slowly.

"So you've pulled an all-nighter then?"

Sam deadpanned his older brother.

"According to these, the machine is 'defective' and the project was put on hold until B.W. could figure out what was going on, but things get weird after that—allegedly, B.W. (which is short for Brad Wemyss) suffered a heart-attack, and died in nineteen-forty-three (I also found his obituary), but other sources say that his death was surrounded by mystery; his wife Janet Wemyss, for instance, recalls the incident as 'very odd' with 'unidentified calls here and there', 'men in suits paying sudden visits at strange hours'…we got our hands on a weird case, Dean"

Dean scratched his chin. "Uhumm. Sounds weird alright, our kind of weird" so saying he went back in the kitchen, only to be startled by a…

"Hello Dean"

"Uh, mornin' Cas"

The trench coat clad angel simply stood there in the middle of the small kitchen, his small blue eyes watching the humans. Sometimes he creeped him out. Sometimes, he found this a quality to grow fond of. He poured three coffees. "Here you go, buddy. All yours"

Cas looked down at the mug. "Oh. Thanks Dean" he smiled. Dean pecked his cheek quickly and went back to check with Sam.

Castiel, Meanwhile stood before the trunk device and stared at it.

At the table, Sam blew over his coffee. The smell of the fresh brew certainly made a difference and helped clear his cluttered brain. He put the notepad in front of Dean. "Take a look at these"

Dean read over the scrawled annotations and scoffed. "Time machine? What is this, SyFy?"

"Dean, listen to me: all of these documents" Sam's eyes moved crazily over the screen, "these…these charts and plans…these are the work of Mr. B.W.—HE managed to build a device that would enable HIM to time-travel, BUT the plans were thwarted and the only prototype is here, in the bunker with…"

*SssssCCccHHHHHwHIP!*

Lights. A static buzzing. Nothingness. Bright light.

Dean slowly blinked his eyes open, squinting at the light. His body felt strange. It hurt, but he wasn't exactly hurt. His ears buzzing, his heart beating hard and fast. What was going on?! On his left was Cas, he could see his feet. He was standing away from him…and…Sam was on the other side, face-down over the grass.

Dean sat up and looked round him. He was in what was arguably a little garden. The sun was bright and he could hear the birds chirping and the leaves rustling above his head. Dean saw that they were in fact, in the garden, of a house.

He touched his brother's shoulder. "Hey, hey Sammy, you okay?"

Sam, at first, mumbled something against the grass then lifted his head and winced. His ears were buzzing. "I think so…" he coughed. "It could be worse"

Dean cracked a smile at that.

"Come on Sammy, get your ass up"

The Winchesters struggled about to get themselves sorted. Dean was first to get up, so he helped his brother up.

"Cas, you okay?" Dean shouted. Cas just stood there. When Dean approached him, his eyes first darted to the object at his feet and then to Cas's face. He really needed some answers now.

The trunk, the size of a regular travelling suitcase was open in half, with an apparatus inside, sending sparks and smoke in all directions. It was comprised of a circuit box, with several 'bulbs' attached to a number board, and various other cables, knobs and buttons. "What the hell Cas?"

"I tried to help" Cas said.

"WHAT. THE. HELL" Dean was scowling and looking very confused.

"Look, I didn't mean to cause any trouble" Cas looked down. "I'm sure we can fix it"

"WHAT?"

Sam hobbled over and tried to keep their voices down.

"Guys, I think we have a problem" he said, his voice was sort of like a stage whisper. He saw the trunk and rose his eyebrows, "all right, we have a HUGE problem but guys…I think we have company" he pointed to a car approaching the house on which garden they stood. They dragged the trunk to the garden shed with Sam and Castiel ducking behind it, and Dean following suit. He was closer to the edge of the wall, so he could see.

The car pulled into the driveway and an older man got off, then an older woman and a tall young man, who held the door open for another who was still inside. The woman went ahead to open the front door and the older man hovered near the car. Finally, the other young man managed to emerge. He held on to the taller one, and then the woman went over and helped them. The last one out of the car, the boy with the bright red hair looked pretty weak, he only managed to get up on his feet with the help of the tall boy and his mother. Eventually the tall boy ducked and the smaller boy was on his arms, looking limp, not even putting up a protest.

Dean looked away and over at the machine. It had stopped sparking at least. "Sammy you better get us out of here"

"I'll have to figure out where we are… maybe Bobby's got a friend or two 'round here" said Sam, wisely. He pulled out his cellphone but the moment he tried to use it, the thing heated up, buzzed uncontrollably and made strange noises before it died. Dean blinked his eyes.

"Yeah, so…we're fucked"

Sam put his phone back in his pocket.

"Unlikely, Dean. We could get help" said Cas.

"Yeah like that'll work" Dean shook his head. "I'm finding us a phone and callin' Bobby"

"They must have a telephone, Dean" Cas said.

"Who?"

"The Bates"

"The…who ….now….?"

"You were unconscious for a moment. I saw their mail box, it said 'Bates' on it. The people who live here are the Bates"

Dean looked to his brother for an opinion. Sam fiddled with the apparatus, managing to close the trunk so it appeared like a travelling suitcase.

"I think we should try" he said. "They can tell us where we are… What other options do we have?"

Dean sighed. "Fine" he looked down at himself, dressed in his boxer trunks and tee shirt. He sighed again, this time out of certain resignation.

Dean, Cas and lastly Sam behind them hauling the trunk rounded the side yard and garden and walked up to the front door. This was a big house, the people who lived here must be wealthy. They called on the door and waited. The leafy suburbia was quiet at this hour.

"How are we going to explain…?"

"Shh, I'll do the talking, okay Dean? Stay cool" Sam said, frowning at his brother. "That goes for you too, Cas"

The door opened before Sam could think up something. The man at the door looked tired.

"Friends of Nicholas, I suppose?" he had a British accent, which completely surprised The Winchesters. "I'm his father, Roger Bates…Listen, I'm not sure he'll want to see anybody right now…"

Sam shook his hand.

"We're not here to visit, Sir, um…" Sam blinked, "we're in a bit of an emergency, see, we've been traveling and we just got off the wrong bus…we need a phone to check in with our uncle….could we, please, use yours?" Sam felt his excuse was a sloppy one, but then, he was unprepared for this. "We'll be very quick"

"Well you lads look like you could use some help, do come in"

Sam was relieved that it had worked. Dean was rather impressed. He took Cas by the arm and they went in with Mr. Bates.

Immediately their faces fell. This house was either outdated, or they were indeed back in the later 70's or early 1980s!

"Phone's over there" Bates kept an eye on the three strangers whose clothes were dirty and slightly unordinary. Sure his son wore strange clothes, even makeup and glitter, but never did he see him or any of his friends show up on a trench-coat or…plainly in boxers.

Carefully, Sam, Dean and Castiel stepped into the other room, which had a bay window and equally outdated furnishings, yet everything looked strangely well-kept and in use. This was starting to look worrying.

"I'll talk to Bobby" said Dean. He took the phone and started to dial, but then his eyes popped open and he grasped the newspaper that was folded on the table next to an armchair and held it up toward Sam's face. "Sam, look at this"

Sam gasped. "Nineteen-eighty-two!?" he whisper-shouted.

"Not only that—we're in England!" whispered Dean. "How the hell did we pop up in England nineteen-eighty-two!" now it made sense that the house looked so …outdated. Seeing Mr. Bates, Dean continued to dial and put the phone on his ear. There was a lot of static on the line. Sam kept a lookout on Cas who seemed drawn to the bay window.

Dean had no luck; first, the static was overwhelming and then the line went down unresponsive for a beat and back, to the 'call ended' tone of old telephones.

"No Bobby" said Dean. "We're gonna have to try again" he hung up. "Cas, come here"

"Sorry, Dean"

Once they had Cas with them, the three started to leave the room.

"Thanks for letting us use your phone, Mr. Bates" Sam said, managing a smile. Dean and Cas reciprocated his gesture looking every bit as awkward as you can possibly imagine.

Mr. Bates followed them to the door.

"We need a plan and fast" Dean crossed his arms.

"First thing we need to do is find a place to stay so we can get to work on this thing" Sam hauled the trunk to the sheltered bus stop and sat down making the whole structure shudder. Cas dithered about guiltily.

"Don't you ever touch our things Cas, understood?"

Was Dean mad at him?

Cas scuffed his shoes. "I was just trying to help your brother, Dean"

"Yeah but we could've handled that you–"

"Okay we get it, he messed up, but we got a bigger problem now" Sam interjected, "we gotta figure this thing out, or else…we're stuck in dull ol' Britain, nineteen-eighty-two!"