A/N: Thank you all for reading. I hope you're enjoying this story. ~Deanie McQueen


Dean pulled the small, black T-shirt over his wee head, and patted his hair down before mussing it up again. The shirt was baggy. The child-sized jeans were loose, too. Dean remembered how he and Sam always had oversized clothes when they were younger, because Dad had said they'd grow out of them any day now, and then they grew out of them and then their clothes were too small. That's when the cycle would repeat itself, until Sam and Dean grew to full stature and could finally buy clothes that fit them, clothes that they would wear until the holes became too many and too noticeable, the fabric too dirty from the bloodstains that wouldn't wash out.

This particular T-shirt had a little pocket on the left-side of the chest. Dean fingered it, wondering what could be put in a pocket so small.

He trotted out of the bathroom and into the bar, sidled up to the pool table which Ash was leaning against and smacked the guy's hip with the back of his tiny hand. Ash looked down, quirked an eyebrow.

"Dude, thanks for not buying me anything with Elmo on it."

Ash smiled with his red-rimmed eyes, and slurred, "Dr. Badass is known for his charity towards the chilluns."

Dean snorted, for the first time noticing that Ash's hand was wrapped around the neck of a half-empty bottle. "You drunk already, buddy?"

"Gettin' there."

Dean nodded. "Good." And he delicately untangled the drink from Ash's hand, a bit of a jolt hitting him when he realized how heavy it seemed, how huge this bottle looked in his own small extremities. Ash was drunk already. Dean, who had woken up a fun-sized version of his former self, understood this need for numbness. Supernatural shit drives everyone to drink.

He struggled in his attempt to maneuver the bottle to his lips, but it got there eventually. Dean would always prevail when it came to booze.

He was just about to tip it back into his mouth when he was suddenly knocked forward, thrown off-balance, and the bottle went flying, landing in a splash of glass shards on the Roadhouse floor.

"Hey!" Dean yelled as Ash groaned, because that could have taken out his wee baby teeth, that kind of move, and he whirled around on one now-sneakered heel to glare at his diminutive brother. His brother, who was wearing a navy blue cable-knit sweater vest and an indignant glare.

"You're in a six-year-old's body," Sam informed him. "You can't drink hard liquor, you idiot."

"That's a myth," Dean retorted. "And it's ageism, which you should really be aware of since you're a bleeding-heart and all. Alcohol is a God-given right to men, women, and children of all sizes, shapes and walks of life."

Sam was just opening his big, stupid, goody-two-shoes mouth to reply when Ellen came running in, wide-eyed and looking for signs of danger. She stopped and sighed when she saw the glass and the liquid on the floor, but Dean saw her face harden before she even turned to them and he knew what he had to do.

He pointed a finger at Sam. "Sammy did it." And then, after a pause, "And he pushed me."

He felt a little guilty, really, tattling on Sam. Throughout their childhood, Dean had constantly taken the blame for the results of his little brother's childish displays of temper or acts of rebellion. Sam was Dean's responsibility, after all, and therefore, anything the little geek did was ultimately Dean's fault. But this...this was just ridiculous was what this was.

Ellen looked at Sam, who had those stupid goddamn puppy eyes ready and waiting for her. "M'sorry, Ellen. I really am. I'll clean it up - I just...Dean was going to drink it. His body's too little to handle 100 proof whiskey."

"You were going to let him have that?" Ellen asked, but she wasn't asking Sam. No, all of her ire was directed at Ash, who was blinking at her with a woozy, sheepish smile and holding up two hands in defense.

"Aw, Ellen-"

"Don't you 'aw, Ellen' me. You're a goddamned genius and you didn't realize a small amount of that shit would probably give him alcohol poisoning?"

Ash shrugged, flipped his mullet. "He's still got his mind. Figured he could make his own decisions. I won't let it happen again, I promise."

Ellen narrowed her eyes at him, but nodded in acceptance. "Good. You make sure you don't." She continued to glare, though, seeming much taller than she actually was as she crossed her arms and frowned. Ash shifted on his inebriated feet.

"I'll just...I'll go do some research," he said. "Try to get the ball rolling on returning the rugrats here to their former glory."

Dean watched his mullet-headed friend leave with a feeling of dread in his stomach, a feeling he realized, after a mere moment, was not unfounded, for Ellen was quick to turn those crossed arms and that frown on them. Dean was hit with the memories of hearing her going at it with the Jo. The yelling. He remembered cringing at such displays of parental authority.

"You don't have a lick of sense, do you, boy?"

The words were directed at Dean and Dean only. He felt something dig into his chest at the sound of them, though he would never admit it. Not on his life.

"'Apparently not," he said instead, in a tone of forced cheer. It was true - Dean didn't have a lick of sense. Dean was always fucking up, people were always dying or almost dying, and Dad was dead. Dad was dead because of Dean, and now he and Sam were orphans, all because Dean didn't have the sense God gave kittens to give up on that goddamn hospital bed before Dad had the chance to make that stupid deal. And now Sam was going to suffer for it, because Dean didn't have the sense it was going to take to keep him out of the raging shitstorm that had been heading their way for twenty-three years now.

"Dean?" Dean felt a tug on his sleeve. Sam. "You okay?"

Dean quirked an eyebrow and looked at his brother, wondering what the hell he was on about before realizing, much to his horror, that his eyelashes were wet and sticky, his cheeks slick with tears.

Jesus fuck, he thought, and turned away from both Sam and Ellen, rubbing viciously at his face. Stupid kid's body, affecting his mind.

"Sweetie?" He felt a hand bigger than Sam's on his shoulder. It was warm and squeezed him in a comforting manner. He let it stay there for a second before pulling away.

"M'fine," he said. "It's just the stupid curse or whatever is fucking with my head is all."

Ellen, for her part, didn't press, just said, "Don't let me catch you near the alcohol until this is fixed, you hear?" and Dean nodded, and looked at the floor, slightly ashamed.

"Yes, ma'am," he said quietly, because he was good at this part. He'd always been good at being repentant in front of Dad, and Ellen was more forgiving than Dad so he knew it was going to be okay when she told him to go sit on one of the stools while she swept the floor. She didn't want him stepping on any glass.

"And you don't push your brother," Ellen said to Sam before shooing him to sit next to Dean.

Dean folded his arms on the bar and put his head down on his arms. He listened to the tinkling sound of the glass colliding on the floor, pushed into a pile by the broom Ellen was sweeping it with. It was a soothing sound.

"Dean?" Sam asked again, this time in a quieter voice. "You okay?"

Dean turned his head and looked at his little brother, who wasn't exactly littler than him any more in any sense of the word. He wasn't in the mood for one of Sam's attempts to talk, so he said, "You look like such a geek in that sweater vest."

Sam huffed. "I like my sweater vest."

"You would."

Sam didn't try for a comeback, but he, too, folded his arms on the bar and put his head down on them, his cheek mushed against the sleeves of the silver buttondown shirt that accompanied his sweater vest as he said, "I really hope we get this figured out soon."

"Me, too," Dean agreed. Because he did. He really, really did.


To be continued...

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