Fic: The Mystery Maze
Type of Submission: Fiction
Title: The Mystery Maze
Author: themaskedmckay
Recipient: dolimir_k
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Author's Notes: I'd imagine Dean would make a great father!
Summary: A mysterious maze puts the boys in the position of having to care for their father.
"What the hell?" Bobby had seen a lot of strange things in his life but what greeted him at the door was a scene about ten years too early. Granted, it wasn't entirely unexpected - Dean had been tomcatting around since he was old enough to pass for eighteen - but to actually have the teen standing there holding a toddler in his arms took a moment to accept as reality.
"Bobby!" Dean gave him a smile that was bright, sincere, and was so full of bullshit he could fertilize a pasture. "Mind if we come in?"
"C'mon, move! He stinks and we have to change him." Sam used his new, teenage size to muscle his way past Bobby. He already surpassed both Bobby and Dean in height and looked like a jumbled mess of too-long limbs and angled joints. He had a large diaper bag slung over his shoulder and he was holding a box stuffed full of baby supplies.
Dean waved and smiled sheepishly at Bobby, "Hey, Bobby! Mind if I..." He gestured to indicate he wanted to move past Bobby, too, but was too polite to just shove his way past like Sam had.
"Well, shoot." Bobby retreated to the kitchen to grab a beer for himself and a couple of sodas for the boys. Just because one of them had a kid now and the other was on his way to becoming a giant didn't mean they were old enough to drink. He could hear Dean bossing Sam around in the living room.
"Augh, quick! Get me a wet wipe!" There was an edge of desperation in Dean's voice Bobby didn't hear very often. "Hurry, Sam!"
"Where did you put them?"
"Diaper bag! Outside pocket!"
"Got 'em! Oh, gross."
Bobby twisted the lid off his bottle of beer and took a swig. It wouldn't do to go walking in there in the midst of a diaper catastrophe, right? It'd just embarrass the boys if he came to their rescue.
"How is this even possible?" Dean sounded impressed and awed. "He's only had juice and strained peas since the last diaper..."
"I didn't poop this much," Sam's voice clearly conveyed his dislike for this particular bodily function and how offended he felt to be in the same room as a dirty diaper. "He's doing it on purpose."
"Don't be stupid, Sam. Nobody can poop extra on demand." Sam muttered something in return that Bobby couldn't catch. "Just for that," Dean said. "Go put this in the garbage."
"No! I'm not touching it!"
"Jeez, Sammy! He did it for you, the least you can do is help him out!"
Sam shuffled into the kitchen holding a smelly, plastic bundle at arm's length. Bobby pointed wordlessly at the big, black garbage bag sitting by the back door.
Bobby followed Sam back into the living room and saw Dean sitting on the sofa bouncing the diapered toddler on his knees. He smiled and pulled a face that made the child burst into giggles. Dean noticed them watching and tried to school his expression into something more reserved but the smile didn't leave his face. "Little Johnny doesn't want his pajamas on yet."
"Is he yours?" Bobby figured the blunt approach was the best approach to this situation. Sam burst out laughing and Dean's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"What? No! I know what a condom is!" Dean said. The kid in Dean's lap clapped his hands and laughed. "This is Dad!"
Bobby's mind blanked for a moment. He stared down at the kid who was bouncing on Dean's knees while he processed what he'd just heard. John was now two years old. John. John was a toddler. Then his brain kicked into gear and he started going through all the ways this could have happened, "Cursed?"
"Yes, we think so!" Sam jumped into the conversation with enthusiasm. "Can you fix him?" Between the two brothers, Sam was the more anxious about the situation. Dean seemed perfectly at home with a kid in his lap; even if that kid was his father.
"Maybe," Bobby replied. It certainly wasn't something he'd heard of before but someone, somewhere, had to know about it. "Tell me what happened."
Sam looked at Dean who shrugged as if to say, 'You tell the story.' Sam cleared his throat, "We were on a hunt with dad in Maine. There was this miniature stone maze out in the woods. The walls were only a couple of feet high and it was pretty simple to solve. Here," Sam pulled out John's journal and flipped it open to the page where he'd carefully drawn the maze's pattern, "It doesn't look like it's supposed to be a symbol to me but maybe it's a clue?.
"Anyways, we looked the maze over and there were no symbols, no script, nothing on any of the stone to indicate who had made it or what it was for. We staked it out for a couple of nights but nothing. Dad said he had to walk it and find out what was going on."
"It was the weirdest thing," Dean interrupted. "We could see Dad fine, the walls only came up just over his knees, and he took the most direct route through but it was like he couldn't see or hear us the moment he entered the maze.
"But with every step he took he got younger. And when he came out the other side, he was like this," Sam finished.
"He seems pretty happy," Dean added as an afterthought. Bobby understood; for the first time since he'd met John he was probably at peace.
Bobby drank the last of his beer and examined the empty bottle like it was a fascinating puzzle for a few minutes before he put it up on a shelf, out of a toddler's reach, and scratched his head. "Okay, I've got to hit the books. There's an old crib up in the attic if one of you boys want to dig it out."
Dean and Sam exchanged a glance and Dean looked embarrassed. "Thanks, but that's okay," Dean said. "He won't go to sleep unless I'm with him."
Bobby didn't try to hide his grin. "Sam used to be the same way. You've just got a way with kids, Dean."
Sam gritted his teeth and teenage pride compelled him to say something in his defense, "There were monsters and Dean had the gun."
"That's true," Dean conceded. "Couldn't trust you with a gun after what happened to that poor cat." Dean held up John's pajamas, they were yellow with cartoon cats printed on them, and asked, "You want to put your jammies on, Johnny?" John shook his head and flopped forward on Dean's lap so his face was pressed into Dean's stomach.
"Precious," Sam deadpanned. "Can we start looking for a cure now?"
Days passed quickly and Bobby's house was filled with the sound of a child's laughter. That it was John's laughter added a level of irony to an otherwise happily domestic situation. Dean defaulted to the role of care-giver and not only looked after little Johnny's needs but also started cooking and cleaning for Bobby and Sam. His chicken enchiladas were sublime.
Bobby and Sam spent the days going over every scrap of information in Bobby's impressively large library. Bobby called around to various contacts trying to find someone who had heard anything about miniature mazes and Sam devoted himself to sorting through books and categorizing them according to which would need Bobby's touch with translation, which obviously had nothing of use, and the last pile was for anything that sounded even remotely related.
Several weeks of this routine found Bobby and Sam poring over an old manuscript a contact of Bobby's had sent over via Fed Ex. They were just coming to the conclusion it was another dead end when they heard panicked yelling from the kitchen followed by a loud crash.
"What the Hell's going on in here?" Bobby yelled as he came running around the corner. He skidded to a stop, salt flying from his hand in an instinctual offensive strike, and Sam slammed into his back toppling them both over onto the floor.
Bobby found himself pressed nose to naked flesh with an adult-sized John Winchester. Dean was backed up against the kitchen counter with a panicked look on his face and a soft, starfish-shaped sponge in his hand. He didn't seem to notice his bleeding nose.
"What the Hell?" John said. "Does someone," he stood up and maintained his modesty with the strategic placement of a blue plastic baby bath, "Want to explain to me why I was not only sitting naked in a kitchen sink but why my eldest son was trying to molest me with a starfish?"
Dean dropped the sponge like it was on fire.
Title: The Mystery Maze
Author: themaskedmckay
Recipient: dolimir_k
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Author's Notes: I'd imagine Dean would make a great father!
Summary: A mysterious maze puts the boys in the position of having to care for their father.
"What the hell?" Bobby had seen a lot of strange things in his life but what greeted him at the door was a scene about ten years too early. Granted, it wasn't entirely unexpected - Dean had been tomcatting around since he was old enough to pass for eighteen - but to actually have the teen standing there holding a toddler in his arms took a moment to accept as reality.
"Bobby!" Dean gave him a smile that was bright, sincere, and was so full of bullshit he could fertilize a pasture. "Mind if we come in?"
"C'mon, move! He stinks and we have to change him." Sam used his new, teenage size to muscle his way past Bobby. He already surpassed both Bobby and Dean in height and looked like a jumbled mess of too-long limbs and angled joints. He had a large diaper bag slung over his shoulder and he was holding a box stuffed full of baby supplies.
Dean waved and smiled sheepishly at Bobby, "Hey, Bobby! Mind if I..." He gestured to indicate he wanted to move past Bobby, too, but was too polite to just shove his way past like Sam had.
"Well, shoot." Bobby retreated to the kitchen to grab a beer for himself and a couple of sodas for the boys. Just because one of them had a kid now and the other was on his way to becoming a giant didn't mean they were old enough to drink. He could hear Dean bossing Sam around in the living room.
"Augh, quick! Get me a wet wipe!" There was an edge of desperation in Dean's voice Bobby didn't hear very often. "Hurry, Sam!"
"Where did you put them?"
"Diaper bag! Outside pocket!"
"Got 'em! Oh, gross."
Bobby twisted the lid off his bottle of beer and took a swig. It wouldn't do to go walking in there in the midst of a diaper catastrophe, right? It'd just embarrass the boys if he came to their rescue.
"How is this even possible?" Dean sounded impressed and awed. "He's only had juice and strained peas since the last diaper..."
"I didn't poop this much," Sam's voice clearly conveyed his dislike for this particular bodily function and how offended he felt to be in the same room as a dirty diaper. "He's doing it on purpose."
"Don't be stupid, Sam. Nobody can poop extra on demand." Sam muttered something in return that Bobby couldn't catch. "Just for that," Dean said. "Go put this in the garbage."
"No! I'm not touching it!"
"Jeez, Sammy! He did it for you, the least you can do is help him out!"
Sam shuffled into the kitchen holding a smelly, plastic bundle at arm's length. Bobby pointed wordlessly at the big, black garbage bag sitting by the back door.
Bobby followed Sam back into the living room and saw Dean sitting on the sofa bouncing the diapered toddler on his knees. He smiled and pulled a face that made the child burst into giggles. Dean noticed them watching and tried to school his expression into something more reserved but the smile didn't leave his face. "Little Johnny doesn't want his pajamas on yet."
"Is he yours?" Bobby figured the blunt approach was the best approach to this situation. Sam burst out laughing and Dean's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"What? No! I know what a condom is!" Dean said. The kid in Dean's lap clapped his hands and laughed. "This is Dad!"
Bobby's mind blanked for a moment. He stared down at the kid who was bouncing on Dean's knees while he processed what he'd just heard. John was now two years old. John. John was a toddler. Then his brain kicked into gear and he started going through all the ways this could have happened, "Cursed?"
"Yes, we think so!" Sam jumped into the conversation with enthusiasm. "Can you fix him?" Between the two brothers, Sam was the more anxious about the situation. Dean seemed perfectly at home with a kid in his lap; even if that kid was his father.
"Maybe," Bobby replied. It certainly wasn't something he'd heard of before but someone, somewhere, had to know about it. "Tell me what happened."
Sam looked at Dean who shrugged as if to say, 'You tell the story.' Sam cleared his throat, "We were on a hunt with dad in Maine. There was this miniature stone maze out in the woods. The walls were only a couple of feet high and it was pretty simple to solve. Here," Sam pulled out John's journal and flipped it open to the page where he'd carefully drawn the maze's pattern, "It doesn't look like it's supposed to be a symbol to me but maybe it's a clue?.
"Anyways, we looked the maze over and there were no symbols, no script, nothing on any of the stone to indicate who had made it or what it was for. We staked it out for a couple of nights but nothing. Dad said he had to walk it and find out what was going on."
"It was the weirdest thing," Dean interrupted. "We could see Dad fine, the walls only came up just over his knees, and he took the most direct route through but it was like he couldn't see or hear us the moment he entered the maze.
"But with every step he took he got younger. And when he came out the other side, he was like this," Sam finished.
"He seems pretty happy," Dean added as an afterthought. Bobby understood; for the first time since he'd met John he was probably at peace.
Bobby drank the last of his beer and examined the empty bottle like it was a fascinating puzzle for a few minutes before he put it up on a shelf, out of a toddler's reach, and scratched his head. "Okay, I've got to hit the books. There's an old crib up in the attic if one of you boys want to dig it out."
Dean and Sam exchanged a glance and Dean looked embarrassed. "Thanks, but that's okay," Dean said. "He won't go to sleep unless I'm with him."
Bobby didn't try to hide his grin. "Sam used to be the same way. You've just got a way with kids, Dean."
Sam gritted his teeth and teenage pride compelled him to say something in his defense, "There were monsters and Dean had the gun."
"That's true," Dean conceded. "Couldn't trust you with a gun after what happened to that poor cat." Dean held up John's pajamas, they were yellow with cartoon cats printed on them, and asked, "You want to put your jammies on, Johnny?" John shook his head and flopped forward on Dean's lap so his face was pressed into Dean's stomach.
"Precious," Sam deadpanned. "Can we start looking for a cure now?"
Days passed quickly and Bobby's house was filled with the sound of a child's laughter. That it was John's laughter added a level of irony to an otherwise happily domestic situation. Dean defaulted to the role of care-giver and not only looked after little Johnny's needs but also started cooking and cleaning for Bobby and Sam. His chicken enchiladas were sublime.
Bobby and Sam spent the days going over every scrap of information in Bobby's impressively large library. Bobby called around to various contacts trying to find someone who had heard anything about miniature mazes and Sam devoted himself to sorting through books and categorizing them according to which would need Bobby's touch with translation, which obviously had nothing of use, and the last pile was for anything that sounded even remotely related.
Several weeks of this routine found Bobby and Sam poring over an old manuscript a contact of Bobby's had sent over via Fed Ex. They were just coming to the conclusion it was another dead end when they heard panicked yelling from the kitchen followed by a loud crash.
"What the Hell's going on in here?" Bobby yelled as he came running around the corner. He skidded to a stop, salt flying from his hand in an instinctual offensive strike, and Sam slammed into his back toppling them both over onto the floor.
Bobby found himself pressed nose to naked flesh with an adult-sized John Winchester. Dean was backed up against the kitchen counter with a panicked look on his face and a soft, starfish-shaped sponge in his hand. He didn't seem to notice his bleeding nose.
"What the Hell?" John said. "Does someone," he stood up and maintained his modesty with the strategic placement of a blue plastic baby bath, "Want to explain to me why I was not only sitting naked in a kitchen sink but why my eldest son was trying to molest me with a starfish?"
Dean dropped the sponge like it was on fire.