Changes, ch. 3
xxxx
In the morning Dean made a quick run to Target, throwing little-Sam-sized clothes in his basket before paying and swinging by McDonald's for breakfast. He'd seriously considered a pink "Girlz Rule!" t-shirt for his brother, but decided that what would have been hilarious with adult Sam, might be just a little mean with the kid.
When Dean got back to the room, Sam was sitting with his back against the headboard of his bed watching cartoons.
The boy turned his head toward Dean as the door opened.
"Dean!"
Sam rolled off the bed. He was across the room, snatching the paper bag out of his brother's hands, before Dean got the door shut.
"I'm starved!"
Dean tossed the clothes bag at the bed Sam had slept in.
"I got you something to wear," he said.
Sam had already gotten an Egg McMuffin open and had stuffed a huge bite into his mouth. The boy gave the plastic Target bag a disinterested look as he climbed back up onto the bed, struggling awkwardly in the oversized t-shirt he was wearing. Sam was favoring his left wrist slightly, but the ribs didn't seem to be giving him much trouble.
Dean picked the food bag up off the floor where Sam had dropped it, peering inside. He pulled out his own breakfast and settled on his own bed with coffee in hand.
"Whatcha watching?"
Sam didn't remove his eyes from the television.
"I dunno," he said. "It's got this yellow sponge thing named Bob?"
Dean grinned.
"Sweet."
After breakfast, Sam got dressed, and the two brothers stared at each other across the narrow distance between the two beds.
"Are we going to call Dad now?" Sam asked, hopeful eyes on Dean.
Dean chewed on a thumbnail, considering his response. Sam had slept a solid 10 hours, the pain medication easing the ache and knocking him out. He seemed to be in a better frame of mind this morning, but Dean recognized that it was a tenuous sort of peace. For now, Sam was accepting Dean's story and Dean himself as a substitute for their father's presence. But Dean doubted that would last long.
There was no way he was going to tell this kid that Dad was dead. And if they could figure out what had happened and get it reversed, he should never have to.
"No," he finally answered. "We can take care of this on our own. Just you and me."
Sam bit his lip. "We're not going to tell Daddy?"
Dean got up and moved to sit next to Sam on the other bed. He lowered his voice conspiratorially.
"Let's you and me do it ourselves. Then we'll tell Dad," he lied. "That'd be cool, right? We'll figure it out, and then we can tell Dad we fixed it on our own." He nudged Sam gently in the side. "We'll surprise him, OK?"
Sam looked up at Dean, uncertain, but intrigued. Slowly a small smile lit his face. "And then he'll be happy that we did a hunt all by ourselves. He'll see that I can help, too, not just Dean. Not just you."
Dean felt his heart tighten at this little Sam, eager to hunt, to show his Dad that he could do a grown-up job, just like his big brother. Dean had forgotten.
"Yeah, Sammy," he said with a forced smile. "Dad'll be real happy."
xxxx
"What's that?"
Dean had opened the laptop and powered it up.
"A computer," he said.
"It's little," Sam said, sidling up close. "What're you doing?"
Dean waited for the Explorer window to fill in.
"Research."
Sam's eyes were round.
"Research? That's not books?" he asked.
Dean smirked, cutting his eyes to his brother. "Yeah."
Sam maneuvered around Dean's knee so that he was directly in front of the machine where it sat on the table.
"How's it work?" he asked, voice filled with wonder.
Dean shifted so that he could see around the small body that was now blocking his view. He moved Sam to the left and reached an arm around either side of his brother to rest his fingers on the keyboard.
"You enter search terms here." He put the cursor in the Google search box.
Dean typed some possibilities and paused.
Sam turned to look at him.
"Then what?" he asked when his brother didn't do anything.
And Dean realized suddenly that he'd been waiting for Sam to make suggestions. He cleared his throat.
"Then you click on this button," he said gruffly.
Sam watched the screen, holding his breath in anticipation.
When the list of links appeared, Sam blinked, hand reaching toward the touchpad that Dean had been using. He ghosted a finger over it, taking a small gasp of air when the cursor moved.
Dean grinned.
"You got it," he said. "Now, position the arrow over the link. That blue type there." He pointed to the screen.
Sam followed the direction, face intent as he concentrated.
"Good," Dean approved. "And when it turns into a little hand, press here." He guided Sam's hand toward the button under the touch pad.
Sam's small finger pushed down awkwardly on the silver square, and the boy's eyes widened when the page changed.
"Awesome," he breathed.
Unable to stop himself, Dean threw back his head and laughed. When Sam turned toward his brother, uncertain and surprised, Dean could only shake his head, running a hand over Sam's hair.
"You were always my trusty sidekick geek boy."
The wave of affection that swept over Dean caught him completely unprepared. Wonder and a fierce punch of love for this kid, this Sam, almost knocked the breath out of his body.
Not sure why Dean was laughing, Sam still smiled. Because his brother was.
"I'm not a geek," he defended himself somewhat shyly.
"Yeah, you are," Dean said with a grin, unaccountably touched at this consistency in who Sam was.
"What does this mean?" the boy asked returning his attention to the computer, a finger smudging the screen in front of him.
Dean scanned the text that Sam was pointing to and with a muttered curse, shoved Sam out of the way.
"Nothin'," Dean ground out.
Sam blinked at him. Pouted.
"What?"
"Nothing, I said." Dean scowled at the kid. "Go watch cartoons."
"I…"
"Now," Dean said.
Sam's jaw set in a mulish expression Dean recognized.
Excellent.
"I wanna help," Sam muttered as he shuffled over to the bed.
"Well, you can't," Dean told him. Sam flung himself onto the mattress and glared at the television. He used the remote to raise the volume to a level that made it difficult for Dean to concentrate.
"Turn it down."
No change.
"Sam."
The sound decreased infinitesimally.
"More."
Another minor lowering.
"Sammy," Dean ground out.
"I can help!" Sam yelled suddenly. "I'm not a baby, and I'm the one that got little!"
Dean hunched his shoulders. Rubbed both hands over his face.
"Look. I know you're not a baby, Sammy, and I'll let you help, I promise. But right this minute, the best thing you can do is be quiet and not distract me."
He gave Sam a steady look, trying to remember how he'd coaxed Sam out of these temper tantrums when he'd been little.
Sam scowled at him, considering.
"Promise?" he demanded.
"I promise," Dean said.
With a huff of breath, Sam flopped, belly down onto the bed. Dean saw him wince slightly as he landed.
"'K," Sam conceded abruptly, turning the television down to a manageable level and flipping through channels.
Dean raised an eyebrow at the now quiet boy.
Alrighty, then.
xxxx
There was a reason that Sam was generally the one who did the research. Dean hated it. It bored him. And frustrated him when he couldn't find what he was looking for.
But this time there was no one else to do it, so Dean gritted his teeth and kept searching.
They'd come here based on news reports of a couple of hikers who had gone missing in a newly opened, remote section of a nearby state park about a month before. The wilderness area had sounded vaguely familiar to Dean, and Sam had found a couple of old stories of people who had disappeared in the 1800s.
There hadn't been much to go on, but they'd been at loose ends and it was close to the Sweeds, so they figured they'd check it out and no harm done if nothing came of it.
Dean should have known better.
He'd been at it for hours when he finally hit something. Trying to figure out terms that encapsulated Sam's changed status, Dean stumbled across a webpage that described a native American myth about a child-spirit that turned adults into kids. Scanning through the story, Dean realized it was based in the same area, but the low mountain range had been called by another name by the indigenous people who had populated this part of the country before white settlers had moved in.
Adjusting his search strategy accordingly, Dean found a few sites that detailed the myth in more depth.
It was a trickster-type spirit that seemed to focus on adults who were overwhelmed by the responsibilities of their lives. Or were cruel to children. The reasoning varied. Dean figured Sam fell in the former category. Apparently, the spirit gave the person a taste of childhood again. Gave them a break from adult cares. Or reminded them that childhood isn't necessarily all lollipops and candy canes. Or made them susceptible, vulnerable to adults. Depending. There was nothing definitive. And nothing about how to restore the child to an adult, though.
Dean ground his teeth. Closer, but…
Stretching his arms out over his head, Dean tried to work the kinks out of his back. How Sam hadn't ended up a hunch-back with the amount of time he spent hunkered in front of the computer, was a mystery to Dean.
He needed a break.
"You hungry?"
Sam leaned his head on a hand as he looked over at his brother.
"Uh-huh," he answered.
"Let's go then," Dean said.
Sam scooted off the bed.
"Did you find anything?"
Sam had stopped asking that question after Dean had threatened to gag him a couple of hours earlier. He seemed to think it might be safe now to try again.
Dean sighed.
"Something, but not much," he admitted.
"What was it?"
Dean looked at Sam speculatively. Shrugged.
"There's an old native American tale about a kid spirit who liked to turn grown-ups into children. Thought it was funny or justice or something."
Sam's brow furrowed.
"Why did it change me?" He thought for a minute. "Did I make it mad?"
Dean shook his head, patting his pockets, checking for his billfold. Found it. He opened the door, and Sam preceded him out into the afternoon sun.
"Nah," he said. "But I think you might've fit the profile of adults it turns."
Sam scowled up at him.
"Fit it how?" he asked.
"Well," Dean responded as he unlocked the passenger side of the Impala. He was stalling, not sure how much to reveal. Sam wasn't getting in the car. Just standing there, waiting.
Dean blew out a breath. "Things have been pretty… overwhelming lately. The trickster turns grownups who are, I don't know, maybe wishing they were kids again." He considered that for a minute because he hadn't really before. Had Sam been longing for that innocence—such as it was in their case—again? "Or something. I really don't know yet, Sam."
Sam climbed into the car, and Dean circled to the driver's side.
"Why would anyone want to be a kid again?" Sam asked somewhat incredulously before Dean could even get the car started.
Dean looked across at Sam, dwarfed by the bench seat, legs stretched out in front of him, feet dangling, wriggling impatiently, trying to peer over the dashboard out the windshield.
He couldn't help the slight smile at the question. "Sometimes it's hard to be an adult, kiddo," he said.
Sam gave him a look that clearly communicated how little he believed that.
Dean shrugged.
"You'll see."
They found a little diner in a strip mall that also boasted a small used bookstore. After they ate, Dean let Sam talk him into doing some browsing of the shelves.
"There's nothing on," he'd whined, and Dean had caved.
Sam found a treasure trove of children's books in the bargain bin, and Dean had let him put a fairly tall stack on the counter. At 25 cents a pop, they could afford it.
When they got back to the hotel, Sam read contentedly while Dean did some more searching until he was pretty convinced that he'd hit a dead end.
His eyes were dry, his back hurt, and he was out of ideas. Time to call it a day.
xxxx