Dean looked up as Sammy turned the sound on the tv off, wondering what he was doing.
"Do you hear that?" Sam wondered aloud. Dean did hear it. There was a sort of high pitched whining sound, unlike anything Dean had ever heard. He stood up from the bed where he had been cleaning one of their many shotguns. Sam stood up as well from the couch, but Dean held out a hand signaling for Sam to stay back and stop moving. When Sam did so, Dean followed the noise, discovering the source to be the front door of the motel room. He pointed to the shotgun he had been cleaning on the bed, telling Sam to bring it to him. Sam did so and then stood back, allowing his brother to get the shotgun ready. Then slowly, Dean reached out his hand for the doorknob, keeping the shotgun ready in his hand. As he grabbed the doorknob, he quickly slammed the door open, holding up the shotgun, ready to defend himself and his brother, like his dad taught him.
But on the other side of the door wasn't anything threatening. At least, it didn't look threatening. He still didn't lower the gun though, because he knew that anything could be dangerous even if it didn't look like it.
On the other side of the door was a man. The high pitched noise was coming from a green glowing metal stick in his hand, which was pointed at where the doorknob had been when the door was closed. The man had floppy brown hair, a tweed jacket, and a bow tie, which was an odd look.
"Who the hell are you?" Dean asked, trying to sound as threatening as a ten year old can. The man gave him an almost sad look at seeing what was in his hands.
"The better question would be why are you holding that?" The man retorted in a British accent. The stick in his hand stopped glowing and making the noise and the man put the object in his coat pocket.
"I'm asking the questions here. Now I want an answer. Who are you?" Dean was trying to emulate his father as much as possible. The man didn't even look fazed.
"Fine," he said with a smile. "I'm the Doctor. Are your parents home?" He asked as if he already assumed the answer to the question.
Dean shook his head, still holding the gun high. "My dad's out. What does it matter to you?"
"I'm just wondering what two children are doing in a motel room all on their own with a gun. Speaking of which, would you mind putting that away?" He asked as he pushed his way into the room, stepping over the line of salt that permanently sat at their door. Okay, so he's not a demon, Dean thought. He closed the door and moved to stand in front of Sammy, but he still didn't put the gun down.
"What are you doing here?" Dean asked, ignoring the Doctor's previous question. The Doctor stopped looking around the room and looked up at the boys instead.
"I was looking for something. I've tracked it to somewhere in this motel. Now will you put that down?" He didn't seem all that dangerous and didn't seem to have any weapons. Dean lowered the shotgun finally, but still kept it at his side.
"What are you looking for?" Sammy piped up from behind Dean, who shot him a look. "What? Maybe he's a hunter," Sam whispered.
"A hunter?" The Doctor asked, shocking Sam, who thought he was talking quietly. "Sorry, I've got good ears," he said, tapping a finger to his right ear with a smile. "What's a hunter?"
"I guess if you don't know then you aren't one," Dean retorted.
"Well, I suppose that could be true. But you could always tell me just to be sure. I could very well be something without knowing about it." Dean was suspicious of this strange man and wasn't about to tell him anything, but Sammy had other ideas. He pushed in front of Dean and walked closer to the Doctor.
"Sam!"
"Do you hunt monsters?" Sam asked innocently, walking right up to the man, who crouched down in front of the small boy.
"Sometimes I do. But mostly, I help people. People just like you and your brother here. Now tell me, are you and your brother in need of any help?"
Dean cut in suddenly. "We don't need any help." He paused for a moment before looking up at the Doctor curiously. "You said you were tracking something..."
"Ah! Yes!" Suddenly, he pulled the metal stick out of his jacket pocket and pressed a button, causing it to glow and make noise again. "There's something nearby..." He said as if he was listening to that noise and making sense of it. "I think..." He jumped up on top of Dean's bed and pressed his ear against the wall behind it, pointing the glowing end of the stick at the wall. "It's in the next room," he said, looking crazed.
"What is it?" Sam asked, looking up at the man in amazement.
"I don't know. Isn't that brilliant?" he asked, jumping off the bed and looking like a big kid. "Do you want to come with me to find out?"
"No," Dean answered for his brother.
"Dean, I wanna go," he whined.
"You're welcome to come too, Dean," the Doctor informed him. "But that is not allowed," he said, referring to the gun still hanging from his hand.
"You're gonna go in without any weapons?" He asked incredulously.
"I don't need weapons. Trust me. I've been doing this sort of thing for a very long time without using weapons and I'm not dead yet... Well..." Whatever he was thinking, he shook his head to get rid of it and asked once more, "Do you want to come? It'll be fun."
Dean looked at his little brother, who was giving him a puppy dog look. He figured that if Sam was going to go, which Dean didn't think could be avoided at this point, he couldn't let him go alone.
"Fine," he conceded grumpily. "Hang on," he said before walking into the kitchen area of the room. He grabbed a big container of salt and handed it to his brother, who took it. Dean grudgingly put the shotgun down and followed the two out the door.
The Doctor ran to the door of the motel room next to theirs and began pointing his stick at the doorknob, like he had at their door earlier. They heard a click, meaning the lock clicked open. Dean looked at it in surprise, resolving to ask about it later, seeing as they were going in the room now.
They didn't see anything immediately in the room. The Doctor walked in, metal stick first, which wasn't glowing.
Suddenly, a man walked in from the bathroom. He looked normal enough, but Dean got a weird feeling from him. He definitely wasn't human.
"Who are you?" The man asked, sounding annoyed at finding people in his room.
"I'm the Doctor and this is Sam and Dean. Who might you be?" The Doctor introduced them. Dean was shocked. Was he actually talking to the monster conversationally?
"What are you doing in my room?" The man asked harshly.
"Oh, of course. How rude of me." The Doctor took out a black thing that looked suspiciously like a fake badge. "I work in this motel. These two are just accompanying me at work. I'm just making sure everything is in order here." Dean looked up at the Doctor, wondering what he was doing.
"Everything's fine. You can go now."
"Actually, I have to do an inspection of the room. Sorry, it's routine."
"I'm a little busy right now." Dean wondered when the actual fighting was going to get started. He was excited about that. His dad had never actually let him on a hunt before.
"I'm going to have to insist," the Doctor stated menacingly. Suddenly, the man started stalking towards the three. Dean felt the pocket of his jeans, getting ready to pull out his concealed knife if need be. Sammy just stood there, looking scared.
Before either of them could do anything about it, the man lunged towards Sammy and grabbed him. Sam dropped the container of salt he had been holding. Not that it would have helped. This wasn't a ghost and if it was a demon, the salt probably wouldn't be enough for Sam to get free. Dean, careful not to reveal his knife just yet, ran at the man.
Or he tried to, but the Doctor grabbed him before he could. Dean felt fear in the pit of his stomach. He worried for a moment that the Doctor might have been working with this man. But then, the Doctor pulled out the metal stick, pointing it at the man. "Let him go," he said, threateningly.
"No."
"You son of a bitch!" Dean yelled, breaking free from the Doctor and running at the man, pulling his knife out as he went along. The man let go of Sammy, in favor of going after Dean. Dean slashed with his knife as Sam ran back to the Doctor and managed to catch the man's arm with it. The man immediately shouted out in pain. Dean watched as the cut on his arm seemed to burn and suddenly, he knew what the creature was.
The man's distraction allowed Dean to get closer, close enough to stab the creature in its stomach, effectively killing it. It fell to the ground with a thud and Dean pulled his knife out. Once he did that, Dean ran over to his little brother, hugging him.
"Are you okay?" He asked. Sammy nodded.
"You didn't have to kill it," the Doctor said, although Dean disagreed strongly.
"Are you kidding? If I didn't kill it, it would've killed all of us," Dean defended himself.
"But we didn't even know what it was," the Doctor whined. Dean thought he strongly resembled a child when he did that.
"What kind of hunter are you that you didn't recognize that?" Dean was ten and he figured it out.
"I'm not exactly a hunter. And if it was so obvious, then what was it?"
"A shifter." Sammy's eyes widened.
"A shifter?" The Doctor asked. Dean was starting to wonder who exactly this stranger was.
"Yeah. You know, a shapeshifter. If you track things down like this, how have you never seen a shifter?" Dean began edging closer to Sam and the door, because he was starting not to trust this man.
"I don't exactly always look for things here," the Doctor said cryptically as if that was supposed to clear things up.
"Shifters are all over the place."
"I mean on this planet." That caught Dean off guard.
"Who the hell are you?" Dean yelled, gripping his knife a little tighter and pointing it at the Doctor.
"I'll tell you if you promise not to try to kill me," the Doctor said with a smile, but Dean could tell he was completely serious.
"Why would I want to kill you?" Dean was close enough to Sammy now to grab him and push his little brother behind him.
The Doctor rolled his eyes at Dean's behavior. "Come with me," the Doctor said suddenly.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Dean said, continuing to point his knife at the man.
"Put that away. I think I can explain who I am better if I show you something." Dean felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see Sammy nodding up at him as if to say he wanted to go with this man. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Fine. We'll come, but I'm not putting this away."
"Alright, then," the Doctor said clapping his hands together and smiled. "I'm going to show you my ship." He ran off before either of them could question him about that statement. They followed him out of the motel room and a little ways down the street until they finally came upon a blue telephone box. The Doctor stopped in front of it, pulling out a key.
"Your ship?" Dean was starting to think this man was insane.
The Doctor simply gave him a look and then turned back to the doors, unlocking them quickly. He pushed them open and walked inside. The boys walked in after him warily.
Inside was a giant room with stairs leading up to a platform that had a giant column on it. Coming off the platform were other sets of stairs leading other places. The boys were shocked. Dean ran back outside to look at the box, which had been quite small. When he came back in, he pointed his knife at the Doctor once again.
"What the hell is this?" He grabbed Sammy's arm, ready to make a run for it at any moment.
"This is my TARDIS. I'm a Time Lord." Dean just looked at him like he was insane. The Doctor sighed. "I'm an alien," he explained.
"Like from outer space?"
"Yes. Are you going to kill me?" Dean honestly didn't know the answer to that question. An alien was a monster and monsters were bad and the Winchesters killed bad things. But this man was nice. He didn't seem to be hurting anyone. In fact, he was tracking down a shifter, even if he didn't know what it was.
Finally, Dean shook his head in response. "You don't hurt anyone, right?"
"I would never hurt anyone," the Doctor assured him. Dean put his knife away, deciding to trust the Doctor. "Now, I have a proposition for you boys." The Doctor smiled at them. "Would you like to come with me?"
"Where?" Sammy asked, looking up at the Doctor in admiration.
"Anywhere. Everywhere." The boys exchanged a look, both looking like they wanted to take him up on his offer and see the universe.
"We can't. Dad'll wonder where we are," Dean said sounding more than a little disappointed.
"Oh! Did I forget to mention it travels in time?" The Doctor's smile grew when he saw the amazed looks on their faces. "I can take you all sorts of places and have you back here 5 minutes from now."
"Can we go, Dean?" Sammy pleaded with his puppy dog eyes.
Dean thought for a moment before smiling at his little brother. "Sure, Sammy." The Doctor looked at the both of them in excitement.
"Alright then, where do you want to go?"
