SPOILERS: tag for 'Time After Time' – Season 7; Episode 12 | minor reference to events in prior seasons | minor reference to a conversation in Season 9; Episode 4 ('Slumber Party')

AN: This is pure indulgence while I struggle to get other fics started/completed. In two parts, 2nd part will be uploaded very soon (no later than next week).

DEDICATIONS: To all the awesome writers out there who keep us all entertained and who I can't believe are so good and yet not getting paid to do this! Sometimes I can't believe how talented you all are (No. No, I'm not jealous. Not at all… nuh-uh….)

Also, thanks again to Wiki-keepers, and my beta.

Disclaimer: All characters appearing in Supernatural are copyright Kripke/CW/WB etc. No infringement of these copyrights is intended. This fanfic is my original work of fiction based on those characters/that universe

Part I

"… Sammy, where….? Where'd you get this?... I mean Hell! How'd you even think to get it?"

That was not something Sam was willing to discuss. As he stood there watching Dean, he couldn't supress the involuntary shudder and succession of squirms that rippled through him, and was glad that Dean was too engrossed in that moment with the gift held in his hands to have noticed his discomfort. Discomfort that all stemmed from the answer to those very questions Dean had reflexively and rhetorically just asked; how Sam had gotten it; how it had even occurred to him to get it.

No. That was something Sam definitely wasn't willing to broach.

Ever.

Because that entailed disclosing the truth, and the truth was something almost abhorrent, even to Sam and he was the one who'd actually consciously committed the act. God only knew how Dean would react if he ever found out.

Sam shuddered again, as if hoping to shake the truth away from himself and hide it under a rug, unseen.

Because the truth was that sometimes, very, very rarely, in quiet, secret, private moments snatched in between hunts or during downtime, when Dean was asleep or in the shower or otherwise out painting whatever town they were in at the time some dubious, hormonally charged shade of scarlet, Sam Winchester would surreptitiously and stealthily and oh so self-consciously, undertake a scan of Supernatural fanfiction.

He would never, ever admit this of course, his dirty little secret, not to anyone. Not under pain of death or torture by psychotic British women or even forced re-admittance into Lucifer's cage, not out loud and actually barely even in his own head. And certainly not to Dean. God! No. Never.

But he could justify it, in case he got caught, could rationalise it if needed, and did so in fact on a regular basis, if only to console and convince himself that he was vindicated in what he was doing. His reasoning was actually almost airtight.

It had been a simple thought, one he couldn't refute once it had embedded itself into his mind and it was simply this; what if, somewhere out there, lost in the ocean of wannabe writers wading and drowning in leagues of fandom, there was another Carver Edlund, another Chuck Shurley. In other words, another 'Prophet of the Lord', putting pen to paper, or fingers to keys, and churning out oracular visions every bit as accurate and revealing and prophetic as Chucks had been, but not realising, much like Chuck hadn't, that these weren't merely flights of fancy, but actually highly accurate retellings of Sam and Dean's life. Some apocryphal continuation of the Winchester Gospels. And for that matter, hadn't Charlie indicated as much? In a roundabout sort of way hinting that there was fanfiction about Chuck's books already out there? Meaning, reading between the lines, there was fanfiction about Sam and Dean.

And as much as that thought had made Sam squirm and cringe and want to scrub himself clean with peroxide and holy water and enough salt to burn the skin clean off from his bones, it was still a thought he couldn't ignore because the more it swam in his head, the more rationale it amassed and the more plausible it seemed, until he couldn't dismiss it as outlandish or stupid anymore. If another prophet was writing about them, was getting visions and prophecies about their future (or even their present and recent past), then surely to the writer it would simply seem like an expression of fandom, dedicated to the series Chuck had brought into a shady corner of the public's eye. That being the case, where else would this newfound prophet possibly share their work, other than on a fan site?

He hadn't wanted to delve into those sites of course. But his motivation for scouring and scanning and obsessively hunting for material had stemmed from that genuine and legitimate concern, one that had lit in his mind that night, out of the blue, and had since grown like an out of control wildfire, one that no amount of ignorance had been able to sate.

So after resisting for as long as he could have done, Sam had reluctantly and somewhat apprehensively taken a deep breath and dived headfirst into this strange and, from his perspective, somewhat 'self-obsessed' world. At first it had been hugely difficult for him to navigate his way around. The subject matter of course took away any sense of unbiased feelings because he really didn't want to uncover what all those crazed obsessed fans had to say about him and his brother. And the disclaimers! They always irritated him the hell out of him, every single time: he was damn well sure he wasn't a copyright property of any damn person or company (seriously?). And God! Of course he never, ever, wanted to read any of that slash material, he avoided that at all costs.

But still, even though he did it, and even though he felt he had a damned good reason for doing it, he would never, ever admit any of it, still did it like it something illicit and slightly illegal, feeling guilty and dirty the whole while he was there. Felt unspeakably dirty after the fact as well. It would almost be easier and less embarrassing to get caught watching Casa Erotica than to be revealed doing this. And (and this was the thing he was most uncomfortable about), after a while he'd actually begun to… well, maybe not enjoy exactly, he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that, but… appreciate perhaps, that would be the right adjective. He'd begun to appreciate some of the things he read, begun to acknowledge that not all of the works made him squirm uncomfortably or roll his eyes. In fact sometimes they gave him a new found insight to the inner workings of those closest to him, including, weirdly and disturbingly (or should that be alarmingly?), himself. And if they sometimes got his inner demons, his doubts and fears oh so terrifyingly right, sometimes he couldn't help but wonder, especially when he was sat next to Dean during those long silent moonlit drives into the night, sneaking glances when he thought his brother wouldn't notice, were some of those insights as terrifyingly accurate about Dean as well?

If they were, he had no idea what to do with that information. Some of it was to be expected; the fact that Dean had self-worth issues, that Dean felt abandoned and betrayed and desperately needed to be loved by his family. But some of emotional baggage, some of the hurt, the depth of insight that some writers somehow dug out, the strange glimpses into moments from his brother's perspective that they etched and carved so accurately well, if it was true then well, Sam didn't know how to feel about that level of emotional complexity and pain in his brother.

But all these pseudo-psycho-semi-begrudged-appreciation-induced-introspective revelations and ponderings didn't make any of it feel any less sordid or lowly, and he still loathed every time he knew he had privacy to do it once more. He persisted however, ignoring his discomfort, and over the course of some time he developed a reasonable system. Up to a certain point in his and Dean's life, events had been made public by Chuck's books, so that narrowed the net for his trawls somewhat. Anything to do with events up until and including the last event mentioned in the books on sale on Amazon, the ones Charlie had confirmed to be the unpublished works of Chuck and that had subsequently been published probably by Becky, he disregarded completely as well. Anything that was something in a distant future or alternate universe (or AU as it was termed), well how would he know if any of that was true or not? Not yet anyhow. So that just left him looking for stories dealing with events and cases similar to those they'd experienced since the events of the last 'unofficial' official book. Not that that narrowed things down very much. And plus, he quickly learned that other than actual hunters, no one was more versed in hunting lore than fan(atic)s.

It was on one of these illicit trawls that he came across that story, the one that led him to where he was now, stood in front of Dean and hoping his brother wouldn't somehow guess the cause of his discomfort. The irony of it was, that the story, the one that had led him here, it hadn't really been particularly well written. He'd certainly read better works by better authors. But it had mentioned in the summary that the literal he had started reading fanfiction, which had obviously made Sam sit up a little straighter, setting off defcon 4, but certainly no more than that; he'd learned by now that his and Deans' reading or somehow 'watching' their lives wasn't in itself a unique theme within this fandom. But the story fit within his timeframe, so he'd indulged it, humoured it.

It was a throwaway fluff piece, inconsequential, forgettable, and in fact he couldn't even remember what it was called or who it was by, except that he remembered the word count didn't match the promise of the title and he'd thought that was kind of lame. But it was short enough for him to skim quickly, and the one or two reviews it had garnered were pleasant enough, if not a little over generous in his view but then, he reminded himself, who was he to judge what people found entertaining about his and Dean's imagined life.

The story began, if he remembered rightly, with Dean's reaction to some unknown gift, and he'd been curious. Not overly so of course, but just a little bit, just enough to want to know what the gift would be. So he skimmed ahead a little. Well, skimmed ahead a lot actually, only catching bits and pieces of inconsequential words, wouldn't have been truly surprised if no one else would bother get that far since, in his opinion, the author had a tendency to ramble a bit. And also, because it was one of those stories that was solely centred on him and his perspective, it had that peculiar effect of making him feel like his brain was being peeled away. It also still always felt strange to think that at the precise moment that he was reading something like that about himself, someone else was also somewhere else reading the same thing. About him. Someone else, somewhere else, was sat thinking, musing, or, god! fantasising about him. It was just weird on all sorts of levels and it was those kinds of thoughts he hated when he did this kind of research, and this story in particular, despite his not even giving it his entire attention, was eliciting those feelings by the truckload.

So rather than laboriously read through it all, he scanned for the word 'gift' or 'present' instead, finding it eventually somewhere around 1.5K word mark (give or take 200), where the substance of the long drawn out two-parter was finally revealed. Or rather and somewhat oddly, was completely spelt out. He wasn't a writer, but he knew enough about writing to know you didn't just do that, didn't just put the big reveal, with a sentence before explaining that that was what you were about to do, in the middle of the freaking story for God's sake! But, amateur, hack writer; go figure.

The gift, as it turned out, revolved around the incident with Chronos, when Dean had been thrown back in time and had rode shotgun with Eliot Ness himself no less. The story had a simple premise and a simple plot; Sam finds candid photo of Dean and Ness together from Dean's time-travelling escapades. Sam gives said picture to Dean as a present. Fin.

He'd hummed at the premise, it was interesting, plausible even, if a bit mundane and inconsequential. The writer had even echoed as much, and he'd found that rather self-deprecating, a sentiment he was no stranger to now and again, so sympathised on some level. And to be honest, he hadn't even really read it beyond that eventual reveal, only skimmed the remainder and second part with half an eye at best, it was just a bit too introspective and self-involved for his palate (and besides, he knew damn well Dean was due back any second).

And anyway, nothing happened in the story, there were no monsters, no dire threats. Nothing to indicate any kind of prophetic visionary revelations from up on high.

So after the briefest of considerations, he'd moved on.

But then, a month or so later, the thought of the story resurfaced in his brain. He couldn't really say why. Perhaps because it was plausible. Perhaps because it had made him think about that time Dean had been gone, made him think about what Dean had done, back there in a time before either of them had existed. The idea that there could be a candid shot of Dean from that era, the idea that a photograph of Dean, out of time and there with Ness could, theoretically exist, it was plausible. Possible. Likely even, the more he thought about it. Ness had been, after all, such a celebrated figure in his time, what with public crime fighters like him being courted openly by the press in those days like modern day sports and reality stars. So in theory at least, in the time that Dean had been with Ness, there was a chance that some paparazzi somewhere may have taken a picture of them together. Slim, granted, but still a chance.

The thought kept persistently bouncing around in Sam's head, buzzing and festering, till it was like an itch he could no longer refuse, a mosquito in the helix of his ear. So he'd started a little scratch on the surface, an innocent little search of historical photo archives, the blessing being that Dean really hadn't been in that era very long at all, so the time frame on his search window was minute, not even a week. Nothing turned up initially but then after a while it occurred to him that perhaps, if a shot existed, it had been such a candid throwaway photo that it wouldn't even have made it to any newsprints. In that case, it really would be hidden away somewhere, possibly in a private collection or a historical society's archive.

And it was then that it occurred to Sam that perhaps he was fulfilling a prophetic vision. That didn't sit easy with him for a number of reasons, only one of which was that he couldn't for the life of him remember who had written the story or what it was exactly that had happened or how his 'character' had behaved, what the literal 'he' had done.

But he negated that thought. He was a man acting of his own free will, he felt sure of it. If the whole encounter with Chuck, the subsequent long drawn out and much prophesised would-be end-game with Michael and Lucifer, had proved anything, anything, it was that he and Dean could choose and had chosen, had changed what was prophesised and written and believed for millennia. He and Dean were masters of their own kismet, their fate was their own to carve and make. For better or worse. They'd averted the Apocalypse, no matter what Chuck had originally prophesised or what any angel and demon had believed. God may have had a plan, but God had also given them free-will and damn it all to hell! he was doing this because he wanted to, not because it was pre-ordained, and certainly not because some forgettable third rate never-be writer had scrawled a few lines about it in some subcultural vacuum sealed corner of the internet.

No.

Damnit, no.

He was in control of his actions and he knew exactly what action he would take next to get what he wanted.

So he contacted as many of the relevant historical societies as he could, both officially recognised and amateur run, and even some private collectors, and asked to look at any pictorial evidence that they had that might fit into his very specific temporal window. The lie to gain him entrance had tripped easily enough form his tongue, (my grandfather worked with Ness for a very short time, just one case actually, but he always talked about it… I was wondering if there'd be any chance there might be a photo lurking somewhere in your private collection of the two of them together? I know it's a long shot and I'm so sorry to take up any of your time but...) and it slipped so guilelessly from him, without any aforethought or intent, that he had to wonder at the looseness of his morality sometimes. But it wasn't a complete lie. It wasn't the complete truth, granted, but it was close enough after a fashion.

And it worked. People were keen to talk about their serious amateur hobby. Were keen to hear some recount from a person who'd been in contact with a person who'd maybe been in touch with Ness.

Spindly, tricky, compulsive little things, were obsessions, especially to an outsider, and Sam had no qualms about pandering those obsessions, playing his part as the grandson of someone who'd met Ness to feed those fixations with a little more fertiliser. He had to remind himself more than once, he was verging on an obsession of his own, this quest he'd set up for himself, to track down a phantom image that may well not even ever have existed anywhere other than the mind of crazed fan.

His plethora of phone calls and emails yielded results at last, and from the list of likely beholders he managed to whittle it down to the most obvious candidate and booked himself an appointment to trawl through their picture archives. He waited till his and Dean's occasional, ask no questions I'll tell no lies, week off, and headed off in search of this picture, half eager and excited at the prospect of finding it (if it even existed), half dreading what that might mean in terms of prophesies and free will if he did.

It was midway through his third day of trawling, with gritty eyes and a stiff neck, sat in a dusty and antiquated basement research office, that the image came up on the screen, and it took a moment for Sam to realise that he'd found what, who, he'd been searching for.

Dean….

t.b.c.

Thank you for reading this far.

Will be updated with Part II very soon (next week at the latest, just attempting a final edit)