Chapter Text
The day was bright.
Dean was sitting with Sam outside the diner, enjoying pie with his brother.
"This is the life," said Dean, placing the fork on his tongue and letting the flaky pie crust melt in his mouth. "You an' me. Drivin' cross country. Stayin' in shitty motels and chasin' tail."
He beamed proudly at the Impala, sitting shiny out in the street in front of the diner.
Sam was strangely quiet.
"Aw, c'mon," said Dean. "You ain't still mad at me 'cause I dragged you away from your girlfriend?"
"No, it's - it's not that," said Sam, looking confused. "It's just. Does the light seem too bright to you?"
Dean gave him a weird look. He leaned forward.
"What? Sammy, we spend all our damned lives in the darkness and now you're complaining about a little sunshine?"
"No, of course not," said Sam.
"You boys want anything else?" interrupted the waitress, smacking her gum, one hand on her hip and a coffeepot in the other.
"Sure thing, sweetheart," grinned Dean. "You wanna fill 'er up again?"
The waitress's smile dimmed a notch.
"Sir, I can report you for sexual harrassment," she said.
"Whoa! Okay, I'm sorry," said Dean.
"Dirty old man," she muttered as she walked away.
Dean gaped after her.
"Old man?" he repeated. "I'm twenty-six?"
Sam was really staring at him now. He was looking at their clothing.
"Dean," he said. "It's not the sunlight, or the - the! The colors are all wrong."
"What does that mean, Rainman?"
"And that!" said Sam. "The slurs, the shitty flirting!"
"Hey, my flirting is not shitty," said Dean.
"Dean, that waitress was about to have you arrested."
"What are you talking about, Sam?"
"These clothes, this world," said Sam quietly. "I mean...look at us."
Dean looked at his reflection in the window and startled.
Instead of the youthful twenty-something guy he was used to seeing grin back at him, the man was definitely much older and a little sadder, almost sallow with haunted eyes.
Then he stared hard at his brother, who likewise did not look as young as Dean thought he should be.
"What the hell, man?" asked Dean. "Do you think some witch whammied us? Made us geezers, like that one time with the Irish guy?"
Sam blew a breath out of his nose. Dean recognized this as a sign of impatience.
"We're wearing hoodies and jeans," said Sam. "I haven't worn stuff like this since the day you picked me up from college."
"What are you talking about, Sam?" asked Dean. "That was like, barely six months ago. Why wouldn't you have the same clothing?"
"I don't know!" said Sam, frustrated, throwing up his hands. Then he leaned forward and said in a tense whisper, "But I do know something weird is going on here."
"Okay," said Dean. "We're old men in weird clothes. Not exactly the worst thing a monster has done to either one of us. What do you think is going on?"
"I don't know!" said Sam. "It's like I keep getting the edge of it, but just when I think I've got it, I - it just slips out of my grasp."
"Well, you let me know when you figure it out."
"Dean, this is serious."
"And I'm taking it seriously!" Dean replied. "But since all we've got to go on is your hunch, what can we do?"
Sam stared out the window for a moment. One of his giant mitts wrapped around his coffee mug.
"Dean, do you remember anything about angels?" asked Sam.
Dean rolled his eyes.
"I mean it!" Sam insisted. "I think it's important."
Dean sighed and crossed his arms. It couldn't hurt to humor the guy.
They were brothers, after all.
Alone against the world.
"Angels?" he repeated.
He thought about it and shook his head.
"Nope. Nothing at all."