Author's Note: the t.v. characters and the universes aren't mine; they belong to Eric Kripke, and whoever owns the rights to The Little House on the Prairie. I'm not making any money off this and all that other legal mumbo-jumbo.

Ahem… the teasing of Sam later is all in good fun.

Also, when I was twelve, I actually did try to "Moses" my little sister downstream in revenge once.

She had wanted my second Pop-Tart, and I wouldn't give it to her, so she started crying and told our mom that I'd hit her.

I got The Wooden Spoon, and she got my Pop-Tart.

Ego, the Moses treatment.

Chapter Two: Shelter from the Storm

We stood there, looking down the hill at Walnut Grove, Minnesota-as-interpreted-by-Californians. Minnifornia. Or Calisota. Whichever.

"Come on guys, it can't be that bad." Sam rolled his eyes at us.

Dean and I were literally dragging our feet as the road brought us closer and closer.

"Why did you have to say that?" Dean looked at his brother in utter horror. "You do realize that we're jinxed now, right?"

"Oh, for fuck sake." Stalking ahead, Sam mumbled something under his breath.

"This can't be happenin'," I said.

A sense of dread crept up the back of my throat and sat there as we walked over the wooden planks of the bridge that led into the 'town.' All seven or eight buildings of it. A 'pot hole' would be more of an accurate descriptor for Walnut Grove; at least in my opinion.

"What's that reek?" Dean asked, putting his hand over his mouth and nose.

Sam was looking a bit queasy too.

I wrinkled my nose at the smell of cow and horse shit, blood, and rot. After a quick look at the livery stable across from the blacksmith's, seeing a covered pit and four or five barrels near the barn, I put a couple things together. "Th' blacksmith does a tannery." FYI, I kinda had a weird life way before getting plopped into the middle of a massacre.

Dean gagged. "I'm gonna hurl."

Sam tried breathing out of his mouth; didn't look like it was working for him.

I skirted around a steaming dark brown pile on the ground. "Fresh horse apples."

"Augh," Sam grumbled. "Who just leaves animal shit in the road like that?"


It was still early in the morning; the Mercantile and Hansen's Mill weren't even open for business yet, so we sat on the benches that'd been built around the tree in the middle of the town road.

Sam had found some money in the bottom of his haversack, so Dean and I quickly checked our own pockets.

I only had on a shirt, suspenders, pants and old-timey underwear, so all I found was a piece of old string tied with clusters of knots and two little twigs fashioned into a cross dangling from the end of it. A homemade rosary?

"Yahtzee," Dean said, pulling out a handful of coins. "How much we got?"

Sam counted his. "I've got…a dollar and ten cents."

"Fifty…. Seventy. I've got eighty-three cents."

"Great," Sam let out a frustrated huff. "Means we'll have to get jobs before we can figure out what the hell is going on."

Hearing him say that surprised me; the kind of work available in 'Little House on the Prairie' probably wasn't what they were used to doing. There was only, like, one farm episode in the whole series and it only involved gutting a hellhound, so….

"Find work?" Dean asked.

"You see any other options?" Sam asked, getting to his feet. "In case you haven't noticed, we can't exactly hustle a bar and then breeze out of town like we normally do.

"First of all, it's eighteen seventy-one," he started ticking his next few points off on his fingers, "Second, we don't have a car; third, no internet or even electricity exists out here yet; and we got a kid with us."

"I'm not a kid!"

They both looked down at me.

"Well I'm not."

Sam crossed his arms. "We know that, Thomas, but you can't exactly go around telling everyone else your real age."

I sat down on the bench, slouching. My feet didn't even touch the ground. "Foine."

Dean cleared his throat. "Where are we supposed to even find anything, man? I only know how to fix cars, hunt monsters, play poker and hustle pool." He shook his head. "Plus, I'm still not a hundred percent from the…the accident. Fuckin' bruised ribs, remember?"

"We'll…um…," Sam sank back on the bench. "Okay, good point."

I swung my feet back and forth. "Am I gonna have ta get a job, too?" I asked.

Dean shook his head. "You're too young." He raised his hand before I could say anything. "Against the law."

I looked over to Sam. "Not here it's not, right?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "The Child Labor Act won't be written for another…um...forty or whatever years. Not until Teddy Roosevelt gets elected President, anyway."

"You're shittin' me." Dean looked at Sam, then me. "Why're you asking?"

"I know way more'n I should fer their school," I turned toward the church building, watching as Miss Beadle brought her buggy to a stop. "Herself'd wanna know too much off us; 'specially if I accidentally say somethin' wrong 'bout stuff I learnt in science or hist'ry that's too much ahead o'this toime period." It's highly unusual for me to be so chatty with strangers; I clammed up, unsure if that was a good thing or not. When really comfortable with people, I can get a little pedantic and talky sometimes. Maybe it was from watching the series that made me feel more assertive around them.

"Much as I hate to say it, he's right, Dean; a kid getting a job to help his cousins earn money won't attract any attention. Thomas going to school, with what he knows, will bring us waay too much." Sam's word brought me back to the conversation.

"Dunno, man, we might need the extra eyes and ears; kids talk a lot more about weird shit than adults." Dean looked at me. "Can you pretend like you've never been to school before?"

I thought it over. Was it possible to pretend to be illiterate? I knew how to read simple things like, 'the fire truck is red' and 'My bike is blue' by the time I was four. My math skills were, and still are, total shit, so that part wouldn't be an act, but faking stupid seemed like a long shot.

"Think you could?" Sam asked when it took too long for me to answer.

"I… I s'pose."

"Guess that's it, then." Dean stood and brushed off the back of his pants. "Now we just gotta find someplace to bunk down, get a bath, and…," he hesitated slightly, "and get jobs."

I hopped down off the bench as Sam stood, feeling like a dwarf between the two of them.


Dean and Sam 'rock-paper-scissors'-ed it out to see which of them would be doing the talking to Mrs. Snider about getting rooms and paying for a bath.

When Dean lost I laughed, and then got glared at for it.


"Why do I hafta go whit' ye?"

"I told you why."

"Rather pull glass outta a mout' wound."

"Tough." Dean grabbed the shoulder of my shirt, tugging me closer to the store. "You need new clothes, and I don't know what'll fit you." He grimaced and paused for a second, breathing through his teeth.

"Are ye a'right?"

"Yeah, bruises don't like me."

I felt like such an ass.

The bell over the door tinkled, but Mrs. Olson wasn't behind the counter. That was a relief to both of us.

Dean gave me a slight grin and went over to a shelf labeled 'second-hand men's clothes' to pull things out and examine their sizes.

I walked over to the shelf that said 'second-hand boys' clothes.'

After finding what I needed, and handing them off to Dean, I wandered around the shop to look at stuff.

Antiques can be pretty cool; personally, I think the books, hand tools, political or club buttons, and kitchen things like meat grinders are way more interesting than furniture and old clothes. Seeing all those things in their actual era was a weird rush. A kerosene lamp, with a hand-painted glass cover, would go for at least a grand in 2016 if it was mint condition. In The Olson Mercantile, it was only a dollar. That really blew my mind.

I picked up a small pillow, admiring the depiction of a deer grazing in a winter field. Whoever embroidered it had an incredible eye for detail. Putting that back in its spot, I saw a silver fork with an extra wide third prong. "What's this fer?"

"Why, you little thief!" Mrs. Olson shrieked, grabbing my shirt collar and yanking me toward the counter. "Come here!"

"I-."

"Turn out your pockets!" Looming over me, she waved a feather duster in my face. "Now."

"Whoa, back off, lady," Dean was suddenly there, pushing himself between Mrs. Olsen and me.

"This boy is stealing," she said, reaching for me. "Make him turn out his pockets!"

"I-I were jus' loo-lookin' at it!" That was hardly more than a strangled whisper.

On hearing my accent, she scoffed. "A likely story," Mrs. Olson yanked me back toward her, "now turn them out!" Her fingers dug into my shoulders as she shook me back and forth hard enough to make me thunk the back of my head on the counter. "What did you take, you filthy little papist?"

"Hey!" Dean pushed her. "That's enough."

"Don't you put your hands on me!" She turned toward the door that opened to the inventory room. "NELS."

"What's going on?" Nels came rushing into the store, wiping his hands on the sides of his pants. When he saw Dean, he clenched his fists. "Let go of my wife!"

Dean pulled me behind him. "She attacked my cousin!"

"He's a thief!"

Nels looked at me, to Dean, and then to his wife. "Did you see the boy actually take anything, Harriett?"

She tugged at the bottom of her shirt, straightening it. "Well, no, but…"

He stared down at me. "Did you take anything, boy?"

I shook my head; my voice was stuck.

"Thomas," Dean put a hand on my shoulder and steered me toward the door. "Go back to the room; I'll deal with them."

"No! Nels, tie him up! I don't trust that little tramp!"

My stomach began to clench and breathing was suddenly impossible. I didn't like all the shouting, the way my hands shook, or how the room was blurring.

"Back the fuck off, both of you!" Dean yelled, incredibly close to my head.

I squeaked, hiccupped, and then felt my eyes start watering.

Someone lifted me off the ground suddenly, walking away from the noise really fast.


Once Sam had calmed me down, I had to endure being poked and prodded by Dr. Baker.

"It's probably mild heat exhaustion," the craggy older man said from behind the green curtain that separated the examination room from the front of his office. "Likely, that's why he had a nervous attack."

"What do we do for it?"

I really hoped Dr. Baker wasn't about to prescribe me laudanum, or some other heroin-based drug. Rather down twelve shots of whiskey at once than take a sip of that shit.

"Have him spend today in bed, and be sure he drinks plenty of water. Warm water, though; cold water will be too much of a shock and it might cause a brain fever." Dr. Baker moved something around, causing bottles to clink together. "If he doesn't improve tomorrow, I'll take another look at him."


The room was marginally cooler, since Sam had put a thick blanket up over the window to block the sunlight, but it was hard to stay asleep. I kept waking up in a frantic, sweaty panic if I heard loud noises from outside.

It helped to listen to the scritch of a pen on paper, and the occasional tapping on an inkwell. Sometimes Dean would swear and crumple whatever he was working on. "Man, my hand's all cramped and my eyes're sore as a motherfucker," he muttered. "How the hell did people even work like this?"

Rolling over, I stared at the flickering of the lamp and the play of shadows and light. I wanted to say something, crack a joke maybe, but nothing would come.

He saw me move. "Hey."

I managed a slight shrug.

"Gone mute again?"

Nod.

Dean sighed and leaned his chair back against the wall. "Would've gotten work over at that mill, but my ribs are still bruised to shit from the accident." He gestured to a pile of papers. "Made an arrangement with Mrs. Snider to help her out with a bunch of… accounting stuff. I do all this shit for her, she'll cook us supper."

Sitting up, I scooted to the edge of the bed.

"What's up?"

Making the motion for wanting to write, I reached toward the table.

"Uh… no can do, man. Sorry." Dean shook his head. "I suck at using these stupid pens, can't spare the paper."

I wanted to ask what was going to happen to us, if he had any ideas of how we'd gotten there, or how we were going to get back, but my mouth felt glued shut. Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes, I tried to push tears back inside.

The bed sank to my right. "Whoa, hey, it's alright." Dean awkwardly patted my back. "Look, I get you're freaked out right now, and probably feeling pretty sick, but me and Sam got your back, okay?" He smirked. "Besides, could be a lot worse."

I wiped my nose on my sleeve before scowling up at him.

"We could've wound up in the Mayberry drunk tank."


Dean practically inhaled his bowl of venison stew like he hadn't eaten in a year. "Oh my God," he said between bites. "This stuff's awesome."

I pushed a chunk of bread through the bowl with my spoon. It was good, but way too much for my stomach to handle. I'd only gotten through maybe half of my own portion. "D'ye want th' rest o'mine?"

Sam glanced over. "You barely touched any of it."

Dean looked up. "You okay, Thomas?"

I shrugged.

"Too much?"

I nodded.

"Okay." He pulled the bowl toward him.

"Dean!"

"He can't handle too much food right now," he said, glaring at Sam. "You try to force him to eat, he'll just throw it right back up."

"You don't know that for sure; he didn't say anything."

I looked at Sam and glared.

"You need-."

Dean cut him off. "Hey, Thomas, you feel like you can handle food tonight?"

I shook my head; just the idea of eating made me feel sick.

He turned to Sam. "See? He knows what he needs."

"But-."

"But you're pulling crap out of your ass." Dean jabbed his spoon into what remained of my stew. "You don't have experience dealing with kids when they get sick," he looked over at me, "no offense," and continued when I waved off the apology, "so don't talk at me like you're an expert."

Sam didn't look convinced. "What, and you are?"

"Which one of us took over the parenting when dad left us alone in the motels for weeks, Samuel?" Dean used The Tone.

Sam looked down at his own food.

"You see this shit, Thomas?" Dean shook his head. "We go out of our way to teach them everything we know, and…" he sighed dramatically, "they turn around and claim that they're the geniuses who came up with it all."

That made me laugh a little bit. "Shoulda done what I tried; stuck 'im in a plastic crate an' sent him down a creek whit' a sang'widge, a kiss on th' forehead, an' a teddy bear."

"Aw, man," Sam groaned, "not you too."

"One too many mouths?" Dean asked. "What was your load?"

"I've four under me; two brothers, two sisters."

Dean pointed his spoon at me. "You tried ditching a sister with the Moses trick, didn't you?"

"Sure, why not when I'd one extra what wasn't doin' much?" I frowned, "She were too heavy fer th' crate ta float, though."

"Yeah, that happens." He nodded sympathetically. "I tried giving Sam away once; had him in a nice cardboard box with my drawings on it and everything. Totally decked out with the best blankets and cookies." He chewed on a bite of bread for a few seconds. "Didn't work, though; nobody wanted a two-year-old. Probably would've had more luck if he wasn't able to actually talk to anybody. Wouldn't stop yammering."

Sam's eyes went wide. "You what?"

"Hey, I was six," Dean said with a shrug.

"You tried to sell me?!"

"Nooo, I tried giving you away. Big difference."

"ALRIGHT. Jesus." Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry that I ever questioned your child-raising skills."

Dean sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Aaand?"

He sighed. "And I'm sorry, Thomas, that I tried… parenting at you when you didn't need it."

"You should be really glad we didn't start swapping embarrassing baby stories about little brothers, Sammy. Your face would get so red it'd explode." Looking smug, Dean finished off the last of my stew.

"Grow the fuck up, jackass." Sam got up. "I'm goin' for a walk."


I shifted uncomfortably on the outside edge of the bed.

"This is embarrassing."

"Shut your cake-hole and go to sleep. At least you're not squished down the crack on the wall side."

"Can't believe I'm in bed with my brother and a twelve-year-old."

"Oh my GOD, Sam!" Dean groaned. "What's wrong with you?"

I buried my face into the pillow, trying really hard not to laugh.

"What….JESUS, Dean! What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"Whoa, don't turn that on me, man, you're the one who said it."

"I didn't mean it like that, you sicko!"

"Suure you didn't."

"Dude, you're such a pervert."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."


Soot and dust spouted up from the chimney, like a dusty dragon lived in our home, when the roof fell.

Grandma was still in there, in her bed.
I'd never seen Da scream like that before.

Some of the men who'd pulled us from our house had held him down when the others started hauling their ropes.

I clung to Mam's shirt while she held Da's head in her lap; they were both shaking and crying as bad as me.

Where would we go now that our house was all smashed up?

A three-sided lean-to thing made from broken rafters and thatch, became our home for the night. Da had avoided the corner where Grandma's body was, unable to even look there.

It was cold, and the rain was coming down thick like ice slush. With a whine, I pushed myself under Mam's arm.

Mam stared out into the dark, not speaking.

"It's not the end of us yet," Da said.

She didn't look at him.

I hurt all over, and my belly growled. Crawling into her lap, I put my arms around her and kissed her cheek. It was all I had for her.


THUD.

I blinked around the room, not sure where I was for a few seconds. "Oww." Rubbing the back of my head, I considered getting back into the bed.

Nah.

I stared at the ceiling for a while; that dream had been incredibly vivid and left me in a cold sweat. This child, whoever I was inhabiting, was a Famine survivor.

Jesus Christ.

I grew up on stories of The Famine; my mom's family had inherited a cultural phobia of running out of food that was never truly assimilated away, despite being born and raised in Wisconsin for about four generations.

I've also gone hungry before. I know that terror you get when your body is so drained and empty that you can hardly walk anymore; the shakes, the dizziness, that unrelenting clawing in your stomach….

Shuddering, I closed my eyes and focused on the people in that dream.

The man had looked a lot like one of the pictures my grandma had of her dad. He had black hair that stood up in an unruly mess in the back, but his eyes were the same gray-blue as mine.

His wife, my 'mam,' could've been a sister to my cousin Jenny.

Both of my dream 'parents' looked like they hadn't eaten in months.

So, on top of what happening in this insane universal fuck-up that had me nearly getting shot and then traveling in the world of Little House on the Prairie with the two main characters of Supernatural, now I was getting traumatic ancestral memories seared into my head.

What the fuck was the point of it?

At some point, I caught myself drifting, and in that stage between sleep there were flashes of images.


Gabriel's face loomed in front of mine. He was shouting something, and from the look on his face it was meant to be a warning. I couldn't hear the words.

I woke up, startled. Looking around, I saw Sam's arm dangling off the edge of the bed, his fingers twitching right above my forehead. For a few seconds, I had the urge to flick at them and see what he'd do. So tempting.


"YOU. DO. NOT. CROSS. YOUR. SELF. AFTER. PRAYERS." The thin cane emphasized each word. "AND. YOU. WILL. NOT. USE. THE. DEVIL'S. TONGUE. IN. THIS. . ." He turned the last word into four agonizing blows.

Blood trickled down my bare shoulders as I shrieked from the pain.

The Headmaster shoved me away from him before standing to straighten his jacket and waistcoat. "If I see one more report against you, I will have you sent out. Am I understood?"

Sniffing back tears and wiping my eyes, I nodded. "Ye-yes, sir."

"Stop that noise at once," He backhanded me across the face. "Ungrateful vermin."

I swallowed down a choking lump. "Ye-yes, sir."

"Get back down to the work floor."

"Ye-yes sir."

"I want five pounds of oakum from you by the time the supper bell is rung, or you do not eat tonight. If it is any less than that, you will be picking until midnight. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir."


There were tears streaming down my face and I could still feel an ache in my shoulders where the headmaster had struck with the birch switch. Those hadn't felt like dreams. Wiping my eyes, I sat up and looked around at the room that still wasn't mine, and heard the deep breathing of Dean and Sam up on the bed.

I got up and went over to the window, stared down at the mill and watched it rain for a while. It was still dark, probably around midnight. Leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I tried to force the images of those dreams from my head.

Staring down at Hansen's mill, I wondered if maybe the essence that made up ME was possessing that kid's body.

That didn't make sense though, because I knew that the body was mine; I was just younger and turned cis-male. How could I be 'possessing' myself?

Well, if I was going to be so literal about it, I technically already was. All human beings are really just sprits riding around in their own personal meat-suits, since whatever it is that makes us…us is, at its fundamental core, a form of spiritual possession. And that particular line of reasoning could spiral into something so convoluted that taking it any further started to give me metaphysical vertigo. I rolled my eyes. "Can't believe I'm havin' a whole internal feckin' discourse on metaphysical philosophy in me head, an' I'm feckin' twelve."

Were the memories coming from a ghost, maybe? Some broken, scared kid's ghost saw a chance to interact and touch the world again, so he jumped in for a ride?

It was the only thing I could think of that made any kind of sense to me.

The worst year of the Famine was 1847, and the Little House on the Prairie show was supposed to take place between 1871 and…whatever year it supposedly was on the day its last episode aired.

An actual Famine survivor who had been six or seven at that time would have to be almost 28 years old, so getting memory flashes from the ghost of a Famine victim made a little more sense. Sort of.

Maybe.

"You alright?" A hand clasped over my left shoulder.

I whirled around, heart nearly thudding its way out of my nose, gripped the windowsill and tried to press myself as flat as I could against the wall and window.

"Whoa." Sam backed up. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

I couldn't look at him.

"Why're you up?"

All I could manage was a shrug.

He stood there for a minute, evidently trying to figure me out. "Um. I'm goin' back to bed. Just making sure you're okay."