Babies In The Bunker #1

It was just an average day in the bunker. With no hunts underway, for once, Sam Winchester had taken it upon himself to start cataloguing some of the things in one of the research rooms. There was no shortage of them, they were always coming across things and never quite having time to file all of them, so the rare days like this were often spent this way. With his laptop out on the desk, and a ham and salad sandwich on the counter, he was busily spending his afternoon attempting to sort the currently unidentified artefacts that they had stored.

He’d already filed away a few things when he came across something that he had to take a second glance at. It didn’t seem all that interesting at first, but he still exercised caution whilst handling it. Who knew what kind of magic or curses that might be attached to it? Almost anything was possible in his line of work.

The item in question was a small, oaken box, decorated with intricate carvings. It was quite possible that it was a simple music box, or had once possibly stored cosmetics or something similar. The only thing that really caught his attention was that it looked like it could easily be a couple of centuries old. Picking it up off the shelf to examine the grooves, markings and patterns on the outside, he almost immediately dropped it again. It felt like it was on fire, and he pulled his hands away instantly. He yelped loudly from both pain and sheer surprise, and tried to soothe his sore fingers.  He swore quietly to himself, unsurprised if he’d gained blisters from the touch that had lasted only a matter of seconds.

But the moment that the small box hit the floor, his hands were cold. Freezing, in fact, as though he’d just spent several hours with them encased inside a glacier. The sudden temperature contrast stunned him, and set him on edge. There was certainly something suspicious about that seemingly innocent wooden box…

Following this, mere moments later he could feel… a tingling sensation in his fingers. The sensation shot through his entire body remarkably quickly, down his arms and into his chest, creeping up his neck and down his spine. After just a few seconds, every last inch of skin was prickling with a feeling similar to being stabbed with thousands of tiny pins.

And following that strange happening, the most unusual thing occurred.

***

At the kitchen table of the Men of Letters Bunker, Dean Winchester was perched, reading a newspaper. He was idly scanning through the pages of the trashy thing, attempting to find anything of interest. Maybe a new case or something similar, but he found nothing new. All that he could find was report after report of things that didn’t remotely affect or interest him. But still, it was good to keep up with what was happening in the world outside of monsters and malicious spirits every once in a while. Taking a bite of the apple pie he had beside him, he flicked the fragile paper pages. For once, he was acting remotely like a normal human that didn’t consider ganking demons as a typical day’s work…

But that train of thought was sharply cut short when heard his brother’s yelp. He looked up, setting down the newspaper.

“Sam?” he called out uncertainly. “Sammy?”

He groaned a little. What had his brother stumbled across now?

“Sammy?” he repeated gruffly, “Are you okay?”

And he still got nothing in the form of a response. Better go find out for myself, he thought, hauling himself reluctantly from the kitchen chair. So much for having a normal afternoon for once…

Grumbling to himself, he left the kitchen, dragging his feet down the corridors towards the research rooms, leaving scuffmarks on the varnished floors as he went. He called his brother’s name again, praying to himself that it wasn’t anything too serious. He could only hope that it wasn’t freaky shit following them around again…

This time, he did receive a reply. However, he didn’t really know what to do with it. The response he received came in the form of an excitable shriek from inside the research room. And that excitable shriek didn’t sound like it could have left the mouth of a fully grown and matured Sam Winchester. It sounded to be of far too high a pitch for that. Which didn’t sound like an awfully good thing to him.

But Dean didn’t get any more time to consider this. Seconds later, what appeared to be a completely naked four-year-old boy scurried from the room and made a beeline straight for his knees. He hugged them tightly, making it for one very difficult to move, and for another making him feel rather uncomfortable. The child seemed completely oblivious to this, and looked up at him with bright, hazel-green eyes.

“Deanie!” he squealed, giggling excessively.  

Dean looked down at the small child, thoroughly confused. Not to mention rather uncomfortable. A random child had just appeared in the bunker. How the heck had they gotten in? These rooms weren’t exactly close to the bunker’s entrance, so that also posed a question of how long he’d been in here.

With a little difficulty, he crouched down in front of the toddler. He studied them for a moment before posing questions to them, careful with his phrasing.

“What’s your name? And how did you get in here?”

He only received an answer to his first question, and didn’t exactly know what to do with the information when he received it.

“I Sammie!” the child squealed excitedly, wrapping his arms around Dean’s neck in a vicelike grip.

Dean choked a little from the unexpected hug, the child was stronger than he would have anticipated. He then picked the child up, propping them up on his hip and patting them on the back whilst he let it sink in what they’d just said. He stood there shaking his head for a moment, walking into the research room. Surely that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. It just had to be coincidence that this small child and his little brother shared the same first name.

But when he entered the research room, he only found things that supported what he’d just been told. He spotted a small wooden box from how it had fallen on the floor. He also spotted Sam’s laptop, still open on the research pages that he had pulled up. And of course, Sam’s half-eaten sandwich on the china saucer on the desktop. And to his dismay, he also found a pile of crumpled clothes that Sam had only been wearing earlier that day. Given his crazy line of work, and how weirder things had happened before, he slowly had to accept the word of the naked four year old propped up in his arms. Or he had to for now, at least.

He looked from the crumpled heap of clothes to Sam, sighing, and his face fell into a cupped hand. Why did strange shit like this have to keep following him and his brother around?

“Samuel Henry Winchester, what have you done now?” he grumbled through gritted teeth, rubbing a hand through his short hair. There was only so much weird stuff that he would tolerate alone on his rare days off, and this wasn’t something that he considered one of them.

Walking out into the warmly lit corridor, with little Sammy cuddling into his forearm, Dean threw back his head and yelled.

“CAS! Get your feathery ass down here right now!”

After a few moments, and a familiar fluttering of wings, he was greeted by the angel in a trench coat. He cocked his head to one side, confused.

“Hello, Dean.” He spoke plainly, trying to get a better look at the still-naked child that he had propped up in his arms. “I did not know that you have a child.”

Sam perked up immediately when he heard the familiar voice, and wriggled about when caught sight of the angel. He squeaked excitedly again, attempting to lunge out of Dean’s arms to hug him. The older man struggled to contain the squirming armful.

“Cashtul! Cashtul!”

Dean rolled his eyes at the excitable exclamations, trying to support his little brother. And for once, the emphasis right now being the word ‘little’.

“Cas,” Dean spoke in a very serious tone, “This is Sammy.”

Cas didn’t react at all to the news, looking at the shrunken Sam Winchester intently. He didn’t question Dean at all, not so much as batting an eyelid. The angel had come across things a lot stranger than his friends being de-aged without any kind of explanation. Which wasn’t exactly something that most people could say about themselves. But then again, they didn’t exactly lead lives similar to most people…

“Hello Sam.” He spoke in the same monotonic voice that he always used.

“Cashtul!” Sam giggled, lunging towards him again. Cas recoiled a little, apparently not understanding what he wanted.

Sighing, Dean put his little brother down. He kept a firm hand on his little brother’s shoulder as he pulled off his outermost flannel shirt. Quickly, he wrapped Sammy up in it, rolling up the sleeves so that they no longer dragged along the floor. At least he wouldn’t have to run around the bunker completely naked any longer. Once the shirt was secured over the four year old’s tiny form, Dean finally let go of him. Sam appeared to be most excited about this, wasting no time in running over and hugging Castiel’s legs as tightly as possible. Castiel had no idea about how to react to this development, having had very little experience with children.

“So what do you think it could be, Cas?” Dean asked, just looking down at the excitable child.

Wrestling to free his knees from the child’s tight grip, Cas knelt down and placed two fingers on little Sam’s head, concentrating.

“It appears to be some kind of a de-aging spell or curse, but not one I’ve come across before.” He finally responded, opening his eyes again. He stared unblinkingly at the small child.

Sam giggled and took advantage of Cas’s lowered position. He flung his arms around the angel’s neck in a tight hug, gurgling contentedly. Castiel, however, with very few and rusty people skills, seemed a little surprised and quite possibly disturbed by this simple display of affection.

“Dean.” Cas spoke with a hint of concern, raising his eyebrows. “Dean, your brother is trying to strangle me. Dean, please tell him to stop. I do not wish to be strangled.”

Dean couldn’t resist but let out a small chuckle. The angel could be a little bit hopeless at times.

“He’s a child, Cas. He wants a hug. Wrap your arms around him, that’s all he wants.”

“I do not understand, Dean.” Cas replied, still trying to get up with four year old Sammy hanging from his neck, “What will this… ‘hug’ do?”

Dean just rolled his eyes.

“Just hug him, Cas.”

Sceptically, Cas gingerly wrapped his arms around the small child. After a couple of minutes and a few giggles later, Sam let go and skipped off.

“Is there anything that we can do about this, Cas?” Dean asked as Cas rose to his feet again. Cas brushed off his trench coat roughly before looking back at the older Winchester.

“I would have to research the spell. It is unfamiliar to me.” He replied, looking at little Sam in a confused manner. He appeared to have been thrown completely off-kilter by the small child’s behaviour.

Dean’s eyes flicked over to his little brother as well, for a moment, before back to where the angel was standing. Or at least, where he had been standing the moment before. Before he could say anything else, Cas was gone. Sighing, he walked down the corridor to pick up his little brother, calling over his shoulder to the bunker’s other resident.

“Kevin! I need you to leave that tablet alone for a while!”

“What…? Why?”

An Asian teenager with short, dark hair appeared from the library, standing in its entrance. It took a couple of moments for him to notice that he and the elder Winchester brother weren’t alone. His eyes soon fell onto the excitable four year old squirming in Dean’s arms.

“I need to go on a supply run. You’re on baby duty.” Dean responded, putting Sam down. The child lingered at his side for a few moments as Dean knelt down by him, looking him in the eye.

“You be a good boy for Kevin, right Sammy?”

Sam nodded enthusiastically. “’K Deanie.”

With that, Dean got up, collecting his jacket.

Kevin stared at them, looking like Dean smacked him in the face. He only looked down when he felt something grab his legs and found the miniature Sammy cuddling them as tightly as he could. He broke the silence with an innocent, sweet little voice.

“Pway wif me, Kev-Kev.”

Kevin stared hopelessly to where Dean had been moments prior, but he was already gone. This was not going to be a pleasurable afternoon for the young prophet…