The next day…
They pulled up to a small, neat frame house in Garth's Ford Ranchero. Sam got out and stretched, knuckling his fists into the small of his back and popping his spine gratefully. The ride to the home of Garth's friend the witch, Selena Jennings, hadn't been the most comfortable. Not with the three hunters crammed into the cab together, but if all went well, Sam thought, they'd have a lot more leg room on the trip back.
"Wind chimes," Dean groused as they climbed the wooden steps to Selena's front porch. He scowled at the offending assemblage of brass butterflies and bells hanging from the eaves, emitting a tuneful tinkling with every gust of autumn breeze. "Witches and their wind chimes and their tie-dye and their crystals… Man, I don't care if it's old-school, goat-anus-kissin' black magic or new-age, tree-huggin' white magic, witches are creepy."
Garth and Sam ignored his rant. They'd heard it before. Garth knocked and moments later the door swung open to reveal an attractive young woman. Her hair was hennaed and, as Dean had predicted, her low-cut peasant blouse was tie-dyed and her collection of necklaces included several crystals. But it was the long, enticing expanse of bare leg between her cowboy boots and her Daisy Dukes that really caught the brothers' attention.
"Well hello there, sweetheart," Dean purred, apparently forgetting his case of the creeps for the moment. "How you doin'?"
"Hi, Garth, Dean," she purred right back, flashing white teeth in a smile that beamed several magnitudes brighter when she raised her eyes to Sam. "And Sam! Oh my goddess, Sam Winchester! It's been a while."
Sam frowned, puzzled. "Have we met?"
"Wait a minute…" Dean's jaw dropped as he caught on. "You—" He turned to glare at Sam. "She's that hippie chick you banged the night I got abducted by aliens."
"What? There's no such thing as aliens, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Sammy. The point is, you took time out to do the free love mattress mambo with Patchouli, here, while your only brother was missing. For all you knew, I was aboard some flying saucer, being probed," Dean accused, affronted.
"I'm sorry, Dean. I was soulless at the time," Sam reminded him in an undertone. He turned back to Selena, his forehead still wrinkled in confusion. "...Sparrow?"
"That's me. Sparrow Jennings," she beamed back, taking his arm and leading him into the house. "Selena is the name I use professionally."
"Great. That's just great." Dean rolled his eyes.
A short while later they were all seated around a table in Selena's dining room, two large ceramic bowls and various herbal and esoteric ingredients spread out on the polished oak in front of them. Selena had made sure to seat Sam next to her. In fact, Dean noted, amused, she was practically sitting in Sam's lap.
"There's enough here for two doses each," the UFO-investigator-turned-witch explained. "One to regress your bodies back to childhood, and another, the antidote, to re-age you back to normal when you're ready. I just need a bit of your essence to personalize and activate each spell." Selena smirked suggestively up at Sam.
"Essence? Ugh." Dean didn't bother to hide his disgust. "What is it with witches and bodily fluids?"
"No body fluids required. Really, it's no big deal," she reassured him. "I can use a lock of hair or fingernail clippings. No need to provide anything...Personal," Selena added with another flirtatious smile at Sam. She placed a possessive hand on the big hunter's bicep. "Unless you want to."
"I can take a hint. Let's go, Garth, I need a haircut anyway." Dean stood up and steered Garth toward the door. "We'll be back later, you two crazy kids."
"Um, 'scuse me just a second, Sparrow." Sam hastily followed them. "Dean," he whispered, "in case you've forgotten, the last time I hooked up with Sparrow was because I didn't have a soul."
"Okay, so this time you cry your way through the sex," Dean joked. "Come on, Sammy, she's totally hot. And totally into you. Live a little."
Later that afternoon...
"Hey, Selena...Sparrow...Whatever your name is, make sure you give us the right potions, okay, sweetheart? This is going to be bad enough without me having to drink any of Sam's essence," Dean called out.
"Ugh, Dean, shut up." Sam pulled a disgusted face. "My contribution was the same as yours, a lock of hair."
"Pubic or public?" Dean smirked as Selena brought in two glass canning jars, each half-full of cloudy, greenish potion.
Sam chose to ignore Dean's comment. His big brother always got obnoxious—or rather, more obnoxious—when he was nervous. Quelling his own anxiety, Sam accepted the makeshift glass with a smile for Sparrow. "Thanks."
"Bottoms up." Dean clinked his jar against Sam's in a mock toast and they both drank. The brothers set their glasses down and looked at one another quizzically. Nothing seemed to be happening at first. Then Dean's stomach gave a very audible rumbling growl, and Sam felt his own insides give a queasy squirm. A fine tremor ran through him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It was rapidly becoming obvious that something major was going on.
From Sam's perspective, it seemed as if the walls of the room were rising all around him. The furnishings loomed up, chairs and table rapidly getting taller. Garth's surprised face receded toward the ceiling and Sparrow's cleavage was suddenly at eye level, swiftly followed by a narrow strip of bare midriff. Sam turned his attention back to Dean before he found his face on a level with the witch's denim-clad crotch. His brother's razor stubble disappeared and the faint sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of his nose grew more prominent and spread across his cheekbones. Dean' hair lightened to a honey shade of blond, his chin softened, and his cheeks plumped. Green eyes widened as he stared back at Sam.
"Dude. I'm taller than you again," he crowed, pumping a suddenly small, uncallused fist in the air.
They stood in puddles of fabric. Sam's arms were lost in the sleeves of his flannel shirt. Dean's work boots reached to his knees and the hem of his t-shirt hung down to meet them.
Selena let out a delighted squeal. "They're so adorable! Aw, look at them, Garth, don't you just want to pinch their little cheeks?"
"Back off," the brothers snapped in unison, trying to retreat from the enamored, advancing adults. Dean tripped over the pair of jeans piled up around his legs and sat down hard on the floor.
Garth plucked up an irate, sputtering Sam and swung him high into the air, leaving the now over-sized jeans and boots in a heap behind him as they slid off his spindly six-year-old legs. "Good thing we already went shopping for kids' clothes," he said, a sappy grin on his face as he set him back down on the floor and ruffled his hair affectionately.
Sam squirmed. "Stop that! Geez, I'm not an infant."
Sparrow knelt down beside him and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. "Little cutie! Be sure to come on back and visit once you're all grown up again, Sam."
Dean groaned as he searched through his cast off boots and pants for his collection of knives, lighters, and lucky amulets. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"
Author's note: looks like I might be getting another snow day tomorrow, so you lovely readers get an unexpected update. Many thanks to CommChatter for your reviews. It's really nice to get those email notifications and read those comments. I would seriously like to bake you a pie, but since that's not possible, how about a custom character of your choice? PM me if you think that sounds like fun.