Chapter Text
As far as the average hunter’s workload went, October had been slow. Sam found himself with a lot of time on his hands and a lack of cases for them to investigate. Without any hunts or paranormal activity, he set to work cataloging and organizing the contents of the bunker’s impressive collection of books and supernatural artifacts. While he occupied his days buried in dusty stacks of papers, journals, and barely readable notes, Dean focused on the tasks of daily operations and general building upkeep, keeping an eye on all the things Sam neglected in his eagerness to sift through the contents of the bunker.
Two weeks had been spent in the endeavor. Days and hours bled together as books slowly revealed their secrets hinting at where they should be placed within the immense Men of Letters collection. From sunrise to sundown Sam neglected everything in favor of sorting through the books in the library. Dean periodically appeared at his brother’s side, a plate of sandwiches in one hand, a drink in the other.
“Eat Sammy,” Dean insisted as he set the food on the table Sam used as his center of operation.
“Oh! I kind of lost track of time,” Sam said, then picked up a sandwich and continued to read as he ate.
Determined to make some headway in his quest to find a place for everything and a thing for every place, Sam slogged through various books while instructing his brother where to place them. By the end of the day, Dean had grown tired of his multiple trips to the storage room.
“Come on Sam let’s call it a night” Dean said, followed by a yawn and a stretch.
Despite his own drooping eyes and fatigue, Sam motioned to a book he was puzzling over and muttered, “Yeah, yeah, just give me a few more minutes. I keep reading this passage over and over again and I can’t quite figure out what it means. If I can’t figure out what it means I won’t know where to put it. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Suit yourself nerd, but if you don’t get some rest soon I’m coming back, hauling your ass out of that chair, and dragging you to bed. Don’t think I won’t do it!” With that Dean turned on his heel and headed towards the bunker’s sleeping quarters.
Sam struggled to stay awake and finish what he started. Shaking his head he decided to read it out loud as a means of keeping himself on point. No sooner had the last words of the passage left his mouth than he doubled over in pain. He cried out before he began to fall from his seat, clutching at the table for purchase, a cascade of dusty books falling on top of him.
“Sam!? Sam!” Having heard the commotion, Dean raced to the library only to come to a screeching halt. He stared in disbelief at the young boy on the floor near the library table.
“What the fuck?!”
A movement and groan from the boy before him, jolted Dean back into motion. Dean checked his pulse and respiration and then pushed the scattered journals and other assorted mess aside to get a better look at his face. There before him lay Sam as Dean remembered him at the age of ten. How the hell did this even happen, Dean wondered. Saying a silent prayer to Cas, he made sure to inspect the boy (Sam?) for injuries. A soft flapping sound alerted Dean to the arrival of Cas in the bunker.
“Dean?” Cas.
“There is something incredibly trippy going on here Cas. I’m pretty certain this is Sam,” Dean said, the air punched out of him, a small squeak at the end of his statement.
“That’s definitely Sam. I can see his soul, but what has happened to him?”
“Hell if I know! I went to bed, leaving him in the library here to do research. Then I heard him cry out in pain, and came running, only to find him like this, a ten-year-old Sam!” Dean rushed out, a pained look on his face. “Help me get him over to a sofa while we figure this out.”
“What was he researching when you left him?” questioned Cas as they moved Sam.
“I don’t know.”
Dean left Cas with Sam on the sofa to sift through the books that were on and around Sam’s workstation. He breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the stroke of luck, that the book Sam had been reading was still open and undisturbed on the table. Clutching it to his chest, he hurried back to Cas and opened it to the last page Sam had been reading.
“This is a book of spell work and incantations,” Cas said as he ran his hand down the page, following the inky script. “It appears the Men of Letters had developed a de-aging spell.”
“What?” asked Dean. “Why would they even need something like that?”
“This wasn’t catalogued very well,” Cas hummed, clicking his tongue. “This probably could have been avoided if he knew what he was dealing with.”
“Hellooo, I’m right here. I need answers, buddy.”
“My apologies Dean,” he said with a slight look of embarrassment.
“It seems that the Men of Letters had perfected a de-aging spell as a means of infiltrating and gaining access to areas where an adult’s presence could be detrimental to a research mission. Sam must have accidentally read the incantation out loud and activated the spell.”
“Great,” Dean huffed in relief, “help me undo it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It isn’t an ailment. It isn’t something I can heal,” sighed Cas.
“What?! What do you expect us to do Cas!”
“Well, it doesn’t appear to have lasting effects. It will wear off in a few week’s time.”
“A few week’s time,” Dean mumbled, “and you’re sure it’s not going to hurt him, no strange side effects?”
Placing a comforting hand on Dean’s shoulder and giving him a reassuring look, Cas said, “Apart from the shock of being a child again, and the physical limitations that come with his altered state, I’d say you have nothing to worry about.”
“Okay, I guess I can work with that,” Dean breathed out in relief.
While Dean slowly began to calm down and relax to Cas’ reassurances, Sam began to stir.
“What’s he gonna be like Cas? Am I going to have to endure his brat stage again, because I can barely deal with him when he’s in grown-man bitch mode.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Sam moaned, startled into full wakefulness by his own prepubescent voice.
“It lives!” Dean chortled, clapping his hand on Sam’s much smaller shoulder. “Do you want to fill him in Cas or should I?”
Cas gave a noncommittal shrug so Dean went about the business of explaining how Sam had screwed himself into a temporary trip in the Way Back Machine. Sam was having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that he would have an extended stay in his 10 year old body.
“So let me get this straight. I’m still thirty-year-old me inside, I mean I feel like thirty-year-old me, in the head that is.”
“Yup” said Dean with a distinct pop at the end of his answer.
“That makes no sense. What’s the point in that?” Sam said with an air of annoyance.
“Well, Shrimp,” it had been decades since Dean had been able to use that particular nickname on him and he used it with glee, “Had you paid a little more attention before you went spouting spells off at the mouth, you would have known that the Men of Letters used the spell when they had to engage in some Spy vs Spy shit. It wouldn’t do for them to gather information while impaired by the hormone-supercharged Kirk brain that all pre-teens and their families have to endure. So while your brain might be thirty, you’re limited by your physical age.”
Assured by Cas that all would end well Dean began to revel in his little brother’s predicament, “So, seeing as we have no secret spy missions to send you on, you’re benched for the time being. No hunts until you’re back to your old self.”