Touched
K Hanna Korossy

Even with the facts that the Winchesters were in the past in the Old West, and they were here to find and kill a Phoenix—which they had yet to find—and back in their time was waiting the powerful Mother of All Monsters, some part of Sam still noticed random things around him. Like how even walking out of town to the graveyard, you could still smell the manure and woodsmoke and sawdust of town. Or that, in the absence of light pollution, it looked like there were a million stars above them. Or how he could hear more animal sounds in the night than he ever could back home, some of them unfamiliar.

Or how Dean sometimes flinched at odd moments, once even quickly sidestepping…empty air.

When another jerk threatened to send his brother tripping over a rock, Sam quickly grabbed his arm.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Dean grumbled, shoving him off. "What's the matter with you?"

Yeah, not his best defense. Sam stopped, forcing his brother to pull up short, too. "You've been reacting to…to nothing ever since we got out here. Did the time travel do something to you? Is—?"

"It's not the time travel," Dean said, glancing around them.

Sam shifted his weight. "So it is something."

"What it is isn't important. C'mon, we gotta find that grave."

Sam didn't move, just crossed his arms and waited.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You're like a dog with a friggin' bone, Sam."

Sam raised his eyebrows.

Dean threw up his arms. "Fine. It's fairies, okay? There are a lot more of 'em around here than back home. I don't know why—undeveloped land? But it's fine, all right? I'm fine."

Sam's arms went slack, his expression no doubt as stunned as he felt. "Fairies?"

"Yeah. Ever since they, you know, fairy-napped me, I can see 'em. It's no big deal, just not used to their being so many of them around." His eyes shifted to something behind Sam, and his expression momentarily changed to incredulity before he wiped it away and gave Sam an innocent look.

Fairy-napped…right. The "UFO" case that was really leprechauns. Sam had vague memories of it, but his soulless counterpart had also written about it in his—their?—journal. Sam just hadn't put together that the effects had lasted.

He frowned. "We could find a way to—"

"Dude, don't worry about it," Dean interrupted him, and this time he looked sincere. "They don't mess with me anymore, I just see 'em. And I'm pretty much used to it. It's just weird here."

Sam tried to remember more about the case. There had been a…Red Hat after Dean. Dean yelling, Fight the Fairies! The abduction in the corn field while Sam was on the phone with him, and Sam…

His face fell.

Dean immediately stepped in close to him. "No. No way, man, you are not blaming yourself for how that went down."

"But I gave up on you," Sam murmured.

A horse and rider from town slowly plodded past them, barely giving them a glance, but the brothers shut up until he passed, Dean with a quick smile and a wave. Then he leaned into Sam again.

"You wouldn't've found me until they brought me back, anyway. It's fine, Sammy, really. That was douche-you, not you-you. It's all good now. Even helped me a few times—turns out fairies are awesome supernatural-detectors."

There was a pause. Sam wasn't, couldn't be, so quick to forgive himself, soul or not. But Dean's reaction helped. He made himself let it go, for now.

Sam shook his head and huffed a laugh.

Dean gave him a questioning look.

Sam started again toward the graveyard, Dean falling into step beside him. "We're in the Old West, hunting a Phoenix, talking about fairies disguised as alien abductors. Our lives are weird, man."

Dean, grinning, did not argue.

The End