Author's note: Now and then, I post ficlets on tumblr when the mood strikes and I thought I would put them up here as well.
Basically, I've fallen into a Destiel trap and I can't get out, but I can't say that I'll only post such stories here. It's a small storage for things my mind comes up with, I guess. Enjoy!
When the witch tells them there's nothing she can do, the spell is irreversible and Dean is a normal four-year-old who simply has to grow up and live his life again, Sam feels something in him break.
He lost his big brother for good.
They will try to find a cure, of course; but as he kills the witch, he feels that she spoke the truth, for fear of her life.
Dean is gone. He's not, technically; but everything that shaped him and made him Dean is gone, never to return, because he can't live the same life over again and Sam would never force him to.
If his brother has to start over, he'll start over happy.
He's not the only one who lost something important today, he realizes when he opens the door of their motel room and Cas sees his face.
Cas, who is colouring with Dean.
Cas, who's human once more, and human to stay.
Cas, who fell completely and forever just a few short months ago, and even though he never said as much, it was for Dean, only for Dean.
They finally got over themselves and now they have lost everything.
Dean was happy for the first time in years.
"Sam!" Dean rushes to him and demands to be picked up and Sam does, while Cas, his eyes shining, flees to the bathroom.
Sam lost his brother.
Cas lost everything he fell for.
Dean likes them; Dean is a happy child; the last few days, after the spell was cast and the witch fled, have proven that.
But a happy child is not the same as the man he was, the man Cas loves, the man he aches for.
Sam takes his place colouring with his brother, his child now, he supposes, and Cas doesn't leave the bathroom until late at night.
They don't talk about his bloodshot eyes.
It's surprisingly easy to adapt. Dean soon loves both of them, and he eagerly accepts their love and guardianship in return. He wants books be read to him and movies be watched with him and someone to play with, and it's easy to comply because his brother as a child is simply adorable.
Sam does research and helps other hunters and hopes he'll eventually become the rescource Bobby once was and that he'll manage to reestablish the men (and women, he won't forget Charlie's legacy) of Letters, he grieves, he manages.
Cas becomes more and more depressed every day. He tries to hide it, but Sam can see through his empty smile, as he plays with Dean and teaches him letters and numbers. He's Dean's favourite, they noticed that early on, apparently he'll always have a weakness for his angel, but it doesn't help someone who loves the man a child used to be.
The days Cas spends in bed grow more and more frequent.
Sam doesn't understand the whole dimension of Cas' loss until he hears him say to Dean in a quiet voice, "Five months ago to the day, you made me the happiest of men".
Sam's heart thinks while Dean, who Cas has taught the hours and months, puts the pieces together, then laughs and exclaims, "I didn't know you then, silly".
Dean turned into a child three months ago.
The Apocalypse, the angel and demon tablets, Lilith, Crowley, Rowena, Lucifer, the Mark of Cain, the Darkness, and after everything, after they beat the odds and made it out alive, two months of happiness was all Dean and Cas ever got, all they'll ever have.
A lifetime in front of him, and Cas only has the memory of two fleeting months to keep himself going.
A resolution grows in Sam; he fights with himself with a few days because in a way, he is selfish; he doesn't want to lose Cas too; but seeing him lose his appetite and trying to find traces of the Dean gone forever in the boy running around becomes too much.
Sam took the spell from the witch in the hopes that it would provide a clue. Now it provides salvation.
"The spell cannot be undone" he says one night after they've brought Dean to bed.
"I know" Cas says flatly, without emtion.
Sam clears his throat.
"But… it can be cast again".
Cas' eyes widen; he stares and stammers and tries to object, tries to fight against his own desires.
Sam already knows the outcome.
The next morning, two little boys are chasing each other around the bunker. Dean doesn't seem to miss big Cas as long as he has small Cas; the appear to be the same age, and his brother has already decided that Cas is his "bestest friend forever".
Sam smiles a smile that, while laced with unavoidable pain, is not unhappy.
It's the same smile he gives them when, twenty years later, fresh out of college, Dean and Cas step up to him holding hands and Dean announces, in a voice that brooks no argument, "We are in love, Dad".