Okay, I'm sorry for the long wait. I needed some time to experiment with this story to figure out where to take it (which I really should have done before posting the first chapter...silly me). Oh, and didn't I tell you that I'd just have to turn this into some kind of Dean torture fic? Yeah, I just can't seem to help myself. It's not too bad, though...yet *cackles like crazy while lightning goes off in the background* Anyway, enough of my crazy ramblings. I'm high on cough meds. Let's get this story going.

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At first, Bobby isn't sure, but an hour and a half of driving with the two Winchester boys (boys, for crying out loud!) in the backseat makes him fairly certain. These two are actually ten years old. Ten-year olds with twenty-plus years worth of memories (plus who knows how many decades they both remember from hell) but ten-year olds none the less.

It's hard to tell at first, because Dean spends a lot of his time acting like a little kid anyway, so the difference is not all that noticeable and Sam has been…off ever since he returned from the cage and weird is weird whether it's coming from a kid or a grown-ass man, but it's blatantly obvious when you know what to look for. Which Bobby does.

It's in their little flinches and pouty faces when he tells them to leave him alone for a second. The constant need to be entertained. The way Dean keeps poking his brother when he thinks Bobby isn't looking. The way Sam is kicking the seat in front of him without ever noticing. All traits he remembers from when the boys were little'uns and that have been abandoned ages ago.

And then they reach the salvage yard and Bobby's last doubts get blown to pieces.

He figures the boys need a little cheering up. They're looking all sad and dejected at having turned themselves into munchkins. Well, Dean is looking all sad and dejected and Sam is faking an expression that somewhat mirrors his brother's. Anyway, Bobby decides that he has just the treat for them waiting in the shed.

"C'mon, you two, I gotta show you something." He announces and pulls open the wooden door. Out tumbles a giant bundle of wagging tail and clumsy paws and pink, enthusiastic tongue. "Boys, meet your new buddy Gates."

After five years of grieving Rumsfeld, Bobby decided that it was about time the yard got populated with a new doggy and the little Mastiff that the local shelter was going to put down seemed about perfect. He's probably always gonna be a big softie on the inside, coming up to him in the middle of the night for a cuddle, but Bobby doesn't mind that, because at the tender age of sixteen weeks, Gates also already enjoys barking his lungs out and hunting off stray animals and punk kids from the town (idiot punk kids that don't realize that they're running from a baby, but that's not the point.)

Gates jumps at the new arrivers with an enthusiastic whine, because they came here with his master so naturally, they must be his friends too. It's reminiscent of the two million other times the boys showed up and got greeted by one of the guard dogs. Bobby expects them to be down on their knees, grinning and patting the whelp's fair, soft belly.

Just that they…sort of…don't.

Sam stares his blank stare down at the puppy and Dean lets out a panicked, badly stifled scream and actually scrambles behind Bobby's legs and grabs desperate hold of his jacket.

"Get him away from me" he all but yelps, then continues mumbling into the confines of Bobby's back. "Make him leave, Bobby. Please."

"Sweet Jesus…"

Taken aback, Bobby tries to shove his leg in front of little Gates to keep him from examining this new, exiting, trembling playmate that's making all those funny shrieking noises. Dean pulls at the back of Bobby's jacket and Bobby feels almost compelled to say 'Christo', this shit is so out of character. But hey, they can figure out what exactly happened here later. Right now Bobby has a kid that's terrified of a puppy to take care of. He starts pushing Dean towards the main house and shouts for Sam to get Gates back into his barn.

Bobby shoves Dean onto the couch in his 'library' and immediately the boy pulls his knees up to his chest, hugs them tight, head buried in his arms and Bobby sits down next to him, his hand hovering awkwardly just above the kid's neck. His old heart screams for him to comfort the little boy but it's not like Dean is real big on all this touchy-feely crap. Especially when he's basically having a breakdown.

Bobby decides to leave him to it and Dean must have felt his weight shift on the sofa cushions because all of a sudden, Bobby has his arms full with scared, sobbing little boy. Alright then, so ten-year old Dean isn't all that opposed to the touchy-feely crap. At least not when he's having a breakdown.

He's not actually full out sobbing, Bobby notices. More like hyperventilating and working real hard on not crying. It doesn't take him as long as Bobby thought it would to pull himself together again and now he's looking all embarrassed and like he wants to dig himself a hole and die in it. He's not getting out of Bobby's loose embrace, though.

"So..?" Bobby prompts gently.

"So…" Dean responds, breath still kinda hitching in awkward places. "…so when'd you get a new dog?"

"'bout a month ago" Bobby informs him. "When'd you stop liking my new dogs?"

'Cause now he's thinking of the first time he introduced the boys to Aspin and Perry and how you couldn't get them out of the yard for days unless the giant puppies were allowed to come sleep in their bed and he's pretty sure he's still got an old Polaroid in some drawer of the boys, aged five and nine or something, draped all over Carlucci, the giant furry beast. Nope. This whole puppy phobia thing is definitely new.

Dean shrugs a one shouldered shrug and talks to Bobby's knees.

"Just…you know…I uhm..ha-haven't really been into the whole Lassie thing since…since I came back…"

Oh. Right. Back from hell. Bobby figures that makes sense.

"I know 'ts stupid. I'm usually better at not freaking. I know Gates isn't a hellhound or anythin'."

Bobby wants to tell him that it's not really that stupid to be scared of dogs when a couple of them killed you and dragged you to hell to be tortured for some thirty years, but Dean is already pushing himself off the couch, squaring his shoulders and walking for the front door. Probably going to storm into Bobby's shed and stare at Gates for a couple of hours before he can convince himself that his moment of sissy-little-girly-ness has been compensated for.

He doesn't. Not for a couple of hours, anyway, but Bobby figures that has more to do with the kid's skittish attention span than anything else.

After about fifteen minutes the boys appear in his kitchen and Sam informs him that they're hungry. Winchester children being hungry? Shocker! Bobby kinda wishes he bought Lucky Charms or M&M's last time he got groceries and makes a mental note to do just that if they don't manage to reverse the curse immediately. For now they have to content themselves with whatever the old hunter has stashed in his half empty fridge.

Dean grabs the cold scrambled eggs that Bobby put there this morning. He wants to tell the kid that the uneaten breakfast is probably only fit to be mixed among Gates' dinner, because really, he wasn't exactly focusing when he made it and the eggs are sort of burned and at this point resemble used, sticky yellow chewing gum as much as anything else. He wants to tell Dean that, but the boy is already stuffing his face with it, because yeah, saturated fats were involved in the making of his meal so he's happy. Plus, ten-year old Dean has been told to eat whatever's been put in front of him and be grateful for it so often that he'll eat just about anything.

Ten-year old Sam was told the same thing but any kind of Sam is a picky eater and it's not like this Sam is in any way, shape or form trying to impress Bobby or live up to his imagined expectations, so Sam builds himself a semi-healthy sandwich out of everything that was left in the fridge - and yeah, take that literally. Everything. Not like other people might want to eat anything in the near futur.

"So what do we do next?"

Dean is putting his plate away into the sink, actually bouncing on his bare toes, looking up at Bobby with those giant enthusiastic green orbs, waiting to be told what big adventure to go on next.

Well, it's pretty obvious what they need to do next. They need to figure out what kind of voodoo the witch back in Mitchell worked on the boys and how to reverse it. Bobby leads the way back into the 'library' and points at a hefty, leather bound tome that has been serving as a door stopper for the last year if not more.

The enthusiasm drains from Dean's boyish features and he raises a skeptical eyebrow.

"What's that?"

"A book" Sam informs him before Bobby has a chance to provide them with a title or anything. "Those things they gave you at school? You used to draw giant penises on mine? Turns out, if you pick them up and read them, sometimes you learn something."

Okay, so according to Bobby's research, without his soul, Sam is basically an emotionless robot that looks like the boy he knew but doesn't have access to any of the emotions and sentiments that make Sam Sam. Except for his obsession with healthy eating and his sarcasm, apparently.

What is definitely missing however is the glee that used to spring up in his eyes whenever Bobby would point him in the direction of any old story book to do some kiddie sized research. This little boy is all blank faced, the dimples seeming completely out of place and useless, when he flops down on the sofa and opens the book Bobby hands him.

Bobby assembles a small heap of potentially helpful volumes and manuscripts and they start working in silence.

After about half an hour Dean's head drops onto the book in front of him and with a long suffering sigh he announces that "this shit is never gonna amount to anything. We're gonna stay midgets forever."

"Nonsense." Bobby scoffs and Sam doesn't look up from his book to huff that annoyed huff of his.

"It's not even been an hour yet, Dean. Seriously…"

"Well, it's boring!"

"Just deal with it."

It's such a crazy role reversal that Bobby thinks he might just need to look into body switching spells on top of the de-aging thing. True, especially as a kid, Dean always had the attention span of a fruit fly, but Bobby remembers the times John dropped the boys off at his place to be taught about this fugly or that one and while yeah, Dean didn't exactly enjoy all of their training, he used to be the one that told little Sammy to stay focused, to keep going, to make a game out of it. Now, though, little Sammy is just a miniature Sam shell with a giant brain and no Sammy-ness to keep focused or entertained and Dean is free to be as bored by their pursuits as he wants to be.

Two minutes later his boredom is basically spilling over. Dean's hands are tapping a crazy rhythm on his knees, his nose, the books, the tabletop, Sam's shoulder ("Bobby, make him stop!"), his knees again, he is rolling his head towards the ceiling, huffing and groaning and alright kid, we fucking get it.

"Dean, get out into the yard and run around or something." Bobby finally snaps. Jesus, what did he do back in the day when the boys got like this? "If ya can't focus, we don't need you in here."

And fuck, Bobby sees the adult walls slam into place behind those bright eyes.

"Aw, shit, Dean, c'mon, you know I didn't…"

But Dean is mumbling something about how it's okay and he needs some fresh air anyway and then he's out the door.

"I think you upset him." Sam comments, a puzzled frown on his face.

Yeah, Bobby upset the boy alright. It takes maybe five minutes before they can hear the old rifle he keeps on the lawn being fired at some old, dead car wreck somewhere in the yard.