Hey, guys. I know this has been done before, but I humbly offer my version of a brother 'de aged'. No offence intended to anyone as I realise there are some touchy elements to this fic. See what you think.

Spare the Child

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A cool breeze crossed his brow. A gentle caress of fresh air to enjoy in the musty, staleness of the motel room. With a stretch, Dean breathed it in. He turned towards the source and opened his eyes.

The door was open.

He turned his head around to see Sam's bed empty. Fuck.

Leaping up, he almost bunny hopped towards the door, one foot jamming inside his jeans as he strained to look outside.

He stood open mouthed. Heart racing. The car park was deserted.

"Sam!" he barked, the quiet solitude of the early morning disturbed by his voice.

He checked the Impala. Nothing.

He jogged around towards the back of the block. Nothing.

This Motel had definitely seen better days. The sign in book clearly showed that the brothers were the only guests to stay there that week. Times were hard in this part of the world.

The flickering 'C' of the Reception sign caught his attention and he walked purposefully towards it. He'd be there, he told himself. He'd be in reception annoying Uncle Fester. Hope was a wonderful thing.

Reception was empty.

Behind the counter a small TV perched on a kitchen chair flickered 'Good Morning America' on it's dusty screen – the sound turned down to it's lowest. Dean batted the bell, two, three times in irritation, knowing full well there was no one there to hear it.

Suddenly, he heard laughter. Light, playful laughter, coming from the reception room back door. He walked through the small living space towards the screen door. The laughter increasing in sound.

It squealed as he pushed the door open – and he stood taking in the scene before him.

Sam wearing shorts. Nothing else.

Sitting in the dirt of a barren back yard. A string dangling from his left hand. A fat ginger cat jumping for it. Every time the cat lunged – Sam chuckled at the sight.

Watching him, with a smile, much like an adoring relative, was the Motel manager, fondly nick named, Uncle Fester.

"You lookin' for someone, son?" he drawled. Despite the bazaar scene before him, this old timer seemed as relaxed and as happy as a man starting a normal day.

"Uh...yeah," Dean faltered for a quick fire explanation. He let the screen door go and it snapped into the frame noisily, distracting Sam from his game.

"Dean!" he squealed smiling brighter than the morning sun at his brother. "Look at Boxer...see him dance!"

Dean flicked a glance at the old man.

"Yeah.... I can see him." Dean returned, unable to match Sam's enthusiasm.

"Hope you don't mind... " Uncle Fester pointed towards Sam. "Had to put a pair of shorts on him. If ol' Mrs Wannamaker next door had seen him runnin' around here in his birthday suit, she'd take a coronary right there on her porch." He sniggered into the coffee he was nursing.

"What?" Dean grimaced. Uncle Fester turned in his chair to face him.

"Tell me, Mr McGillicuddy. How old is Sam?"

"He's 26." Dean shot back. Uncle Fester's smile faded and he shook his head slowly.

"Well, now," he muttered, looking back at Sam on the dirt ground. "Ain't that a sin."

Dean opened his mouth to answer, but abruptly realised...he didn't know what to say.

"He reminds me of my niece, Marylinn. Such a lovin' child - but not enough sense in her pretty head to work a damn toaster. An accident at birth, they said. Not enough oxygen to the brain...or somethin'," he said wistfully. He took a slurp at his coffee before asking, "Is that what happened to Sam?"

Dean's mind worked overtime. The cat jumped and Sam giggled.

"No...he's not...he's just...he gets like that when he's drunk." Dean walked across the yard towards Sam and pulled on his free arm.

"C'mon, Sam, let's go."

The old man moved to get up from his chair. "Hey, son...I didn't mean nothing. I thought he was...he acted like he was..." he wiped at the back of his neck like an embarrassed child.

"Look, it's alright. I'm just sorry he interrupted you this morning. " Sam let himself be lead by Dean, but his eyes stayed on the ginger cat. "We'll get out of your way now. And thanks for the...pants," he added, a firm hand on Sam's bare back as he opened the screen door and stepped into the old man's living space.

Dean slammed their own room door behind them.

Sam stood in the middle of the floor, one foot standing on the other, pinched features, eyebrows knitted together. The image of worry and guilt. Dean considered him for a beat. The whole scene was a throw back to years gone by. When Sam was four, and John had slammed the room door with just the same amount of anger Dean now possessed. The memory bit hard and he struggled to compose himself.

"Sam," he kept his voice firm. "You can't be running off like that. Hell, anything could have happened, and I would never have known."

Sam bit his lip. Eyes drawn towards Dean's feet. It was only then that Dean noticed Sam's own shorts lying on the floor. The ones he had discarded in his quest for freedom.

"And you can't be taking your pants off either," he added. "You're...you're a big boy now...and big boys don't go outside in the scud." Well, there was a sentence he'd never thought he'd ever say.

Sam scowled. Then crossed his arms. Then he crawled onto his bed and curled himself up into a ball amongst the covers, the dirt from his bare feet marking the sheets.

Dean looked up at the ceiling and silently cursed the day he'd run into that skank witch at the gas station.

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She had a diamond smile. Bright and pure. And the smoothest skin.

But then sixteen year olds usually did. Dean had hardly noticed her. In his mind, he chewed over their latest hunt which was still not resolved after two nights and three days solid toil. He had a full bladder to empty and two rumbling stomachs to feed. Heck, Miss America could have been standing behind the till in a star spangled bikini and he wouldn't have blinked twice at her.

But Arla Hamilton had seen Dean Winchester. And she liked what she saw.

"So, you boys on a road trip?" she'd chirped as she'd sashayed her way towards the sales counter.

"Uh...yeah." Dean glanced out at Sam still sleeping in the Impala.

"Where you headed?"

It was only then that Dean had really looked at her. She flashed a smile and flicked her hair behind her shoulder.

"Oh...nowhere exciting," he looked down at the items he'd bought, hoping she'd just ring them through the till and he'd be gone. Instead, she leaned across the counter, her fulsome cleavage now in full view.

"You sure you got all you need, now?" Her softest voice.

"Yup." He'd returned curtly.

She didn't move.

"Your buddy's takin' a nap just now," she coo-ed. "He wouldn't miss you if you were...held up doin' somethin' else." She raised an eyebrow and watched him intently.

Dean nodded, immediately understanding the suggestion. Immediately assessing her situation. A bored teenager, on the edge of adulthood, stuck in a dustbowl town with a handful of neighbours that she'd probably grown up with. Nothing good ever happened in her sad little life. And nothing good ever would.

"Look, sweetheart," Dean had snorted. "Just ring through my stuff would you? I'm sure there's a showing of High School Musical on somewhere and you're missing it."

Her smile had suddenly disappeared and she'd stood up to her full height. Dead eyes regarded him then, enough to make him avert his gaze towards the items he now pushed towards her.

"I ain't no child," she said, crossing her arms.

"You ain't no sales assistant either."

Her eyes flashed with anger.

"You know, you've got a smart mouth."

Dean shook his head with a chuckle and pulled a few notes from his back pocket. He slapped them on the counter and pulled the items towards him.

"Are you laughing at me, Mister?"

"No, ma'am," he turned his back towards her.

"It ain't polite to be laughing at young folks, you know," she raised her voice as he walked away. He became aware of her following him towards the door.

"You think you got it good being all grown up, do ya?" she continued. Dean walked around the Impala, opened the door and got in. Arla watched him sullenly...

...and then her eyes rested on his sleeping companion.

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He rolled his jeans up into a ball and stuffed them into the edge of the hold-all. Then he rubbed his chin and considered his brother's sleeping form on the other bed. Still curled into the same petulant ball he'd made when he'd flounced onto the bed earlier – he'd fallen into a deep sleep, as only a four year old could.

A four year old.

That's what Dean had guessed at for Sam's 'new' age. He'd fallen asleep as a hard-assed, 26 year old demon hunter, with the weight of the world on his shoulders and a pledge to kill an uber demon named Lillith, and had woken up an hour later with the mental age of a pre- schooler.

Dean had been angry at first.

Thought he'd been drinking. Or worse, that he'd taken something. But Sam was rarely a happy drunk. He tended more towards the morose side of his ego. And drugs were never really his thing. Not enough control and never enough money. Or so he'd said in the past.

And then, while driving through some hick mid western town, Sam decided he wanted some candy...like now. And Dean had stopped the car, and watched with a mixture of fascination and abject horror as Sam had tried to cross the Main Street to get to the store. The man had lost all his sense of direction, all his sense of spacial acuity, and danger. Tyres had screeched and horns had honked enough to make Sam flinch and cower on his knees at the side of the road...all thoughts of candy suddenly erased from his mind.

By the time Dean had reached him, he was all snots and tears. He'd reached out for Dean and hugged him tight around his waist like a child. Shoppers nearby had stopped walking to stare at the touching scene. Dean had patted his back in a half-hearted attempt to console...the child. Because that's what Sam had become.

"Sam." Dean said softly. He dumped the shirt and jeans onto the end of Sam's bed and waited for him to wake up.

"Sam, come on! Time to get up." A firmer tone.

Sam drew his legs up further and covered his ears with a pillow.

"Time to get dressed. Jump too it, dude."

"Where we going?" A muffled voice from behind the pillow.

"Back to Carterville Gas Station," Dean ground out.

"Don' wanna."

"Me neither. Now can you get your clothes on...please?"

With a sigh, Sam moved to sit himself up. Hair askew and crease marks down his face. He rubbed his eyes and sat dishevelled on the edge of the bed. Dean picked up the t shirt and was about to hand it to Sam, when he stood up, and lifted his arms up and waited.

Dean frowned at his antics before the realisation hit him.

As tall and as capable as he looked, Sam wasn't about to dress himself. Because when Sam was four, someone else usually did it for him. Or started him off, at the very least.

With a laboured sigh, Dean rolled up the t shirt and obediently pulled it over Sam's tousled head. Sam duly struggled to find the arm holes, just like he did when he was four – and patiently waited for Dean to open the legs of his clean shorts before he stepped into them. In the bathroom he knew how to brush his teeth, and wash behind his neck, and thankfully had accepted Dean's muffled acknowledgement of the bristles on his chin. Yes, big boys can have hair on their faces. No, he could not use the razor to take it off. Yes, Dean would help him shave it off later. Hopefully never.

Dean waited for Sam to pull his long legs into the Impala and offered the notebook and pencil as a poor substitute for a Gameboy if ever there was one. A faint smile tugged at Sam's mouth and he immediately focussed on scribbling out an outline of a fat cat. That should keep him going for at least ten minutes, Dean told himself. With a sigh, he closed the door and paced out the plan in his head.

He'd catch that horny bitch and find out what stupid hex she'd placed on his brother. And then he'd make her change it back. Life with a four year old trailing behind him just wasn't going to cut it in a hunter's world, and unlike John, Dean didn't have a handy eight year old heir to take the strain when he had a job to finish. This Sam couldn't watch his back. This Sam couldn't hustle pool, discuss a case or provide the necessary back up in a tight spot. This Sam couldn't listen to a theory. Couldn't even talk, let alone concentrate on what Dean was telling him.

In the car, Dean turned on the radio and glanced over at his brother . Engrossed in his task – he raised his face and flashed an endearing grin at Dean, the innocence and honesty of it nearly broke his heart. He couldn't remember the last time his brother had smiled at him like that. It was like a gift.

"Dude. I can't wait to tell you all about this one," he said quietly.

But Sam wasn't even listening. Instead he hummed along with the tune of an old song that provided their back ground noise.

Dean put the car in gear and started thinking about the route to the gas station only a hundred miles back along from where they came.

"Oooh!" Sam pointed as the car swung around the empty car park. "See the roof, Dean."

"Yeah, I see the roof."

Sam dropped his pad and pencil and inhaled in growing excitement, his finger jabbing at the window.

"Dean, look at Boxer's roof...Boxer's roof, Dean."

"What?" he answered, his head swinging round to where Sam was pointing. He jammed on the brakes at the sight, the jolt propelling them both forward slightly.

"Need a nee-naw." Sam exclaimed.

And he was right. From Uncle Fester's roof, thick black smoke trailed into the clear blue sky, flames already licking at the blackened window.

And no sign of the kindly old man anywhere...

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