Dean’s lip curled, his tongue briefly flicking out in a draconic reaction. He was adjusting to the darkness of the night, features of this stranger slowly coming into view.

Dark, dirty blond hair. A leather jacket that smelled of gunpowder and aftershave, glowing like a beacon in the scents of the forest. Worn jeans and a silver knife clutched in a hand. The man stood his ground as the dragon looked him over, both assessing the new threat.

Something twisted in Dean’s chest, and he let out a rumbling grown. ‘Sam?’ he called out, his head moving to the side to look for his companions campsite and fire.

While he was distracted, this new man struck. Lunging forward, he went for one of Dean’s claws, the knife burning into the dragon’s hide before he could twitch it away.

Dean roared in pain. Distantly, the sound of wolves cut out. Branches rustled at the nearby birds flew off. The animals knew to keep their distance when a Drauglin, protector of the forest, was injured.

The temptation to bite down and end the threat there and then nearly came upon Dean, but he held himself back, hauling to his feet and yanking his claw back to free it from the knife.

The man cussed as he was dragged along for a few feet, then fell to his knees as Dean freed himself.

Before he could recover, Dean thrust his head forward. He snapped at the air, making the man fall backwards in an attempt to dodge the implied threat, not knowing Dean had no interest in making a meal of him.

That was when Dean caught the scent of a second human, just faintly there under the thick, cloying smell of this man, this hunter.

‘Sam?’ he called out hopefully, searching for his brother.

The second he moved farther away from the stranger, the fainter the smell grew, until it was gone. He swung his head back towards the stranger. It grew more powerful again.

This man had messed with his brother!

Dean’s eyes dilated, and he hissed. ‘What did you do to Sam?’ he chirp-growled. ‘Did you touch Cas?!’

The man’s own eyes were wide, glancing between Dean and his two large clawed hands on either side of him. Like a cornered animal.

His silhouette still nagged at Dean, like he should recognize it, but he was far more concerned with the faint voice he could hear, calling out.

“Dean, keep back!”

The Drauglin instantly backed off, looking around for Sam. ‘Sammy?’ he called out hopefully. ‘Who is this asshat? Where’s Cas?’

There was no reaction to his call, and the small voice continued on, just barely picked up by Dean’s ears.

“Dean, I think it’s trying to talk. Those chirps…”

The human growled in annoyance. “Seriously, Sam? You think a dragon wants to talk to us.”

“If it wanted to attack, do you think we’d still be standing here?”

In horror, Dean looked down at the man, really looked at him.

A spike of messy hair. A familiar duffel bag on his shoulders. A younger face than Dean had seen in the mirror, years before he was turned into a Drauglin by Cricket.

‘Dean?’ he chirped, his own name coming out mangled in the dragon’s tongue.

The human didn’t react, and Dean changed tactics, signing out the letters for his own name.

“See? That’s sign language! It’s gotta be!”

The voice that Dean just knew was his little brother’s continued, and as he signed out SAM, he inched forward, sniffing at the younger Dean. That smell of Sam was stronger, and the dragon drew close, younger Dean stepping nervously back, Dean happened to catch sight of something tiny moving on that young Dean’s shoulder.

‘Sammy?! ’ he squawk-chirped, jerking in surprise as he realized that there was a person on this man’s shoulder.

In his startled motion, Dean accidentally knocked into his younger self, sending him sprawling across Dean’s large snout. The man shouted, trying to scramble off as Dean raised up his head in surprise.

Leaving the two Dean’s, separated by ten years and a transformation into a dragon, staring at each other in slack-jawed amazement.

The only one who seemed to be unaffected by this, aside from clinging to the human Dean’s collar, was the absolutely tiny version of Sam on his shoulder.

“Dean, do you see that?” he called out excitedly. With them so close, the dragon version of Dean could actually see the fluff of brown hair and youthful face. It was Sam, just like the man trying to find a hold on his smooth snout that did not involve the edge of Dean’s mouth, only younger. His own Sam was worn by years of hunting and months of trying to get Dean back to himself. “Those eyes! That’s not a wild animal!”

Dean stifled the temptation to shake these two strange men from his nose, merely blinking at them in confusion and inhaling deeply, filling his mouth with the strangely familiar smell of himself and a Sam who barely seemed real. He shouldn’t exist.

Any more than a dragon should exist.

The suction against his legs made the human Dean try and scramble on better. “Yeah, well you’re not the one that he’s sniffing up for dinner!”

Dean was offended at the assumption he would eat them. For one thing, he’d never eat a human. For another, this Dean overestimated the meat on his bone. Dean lowered his head to the ground, tilting it until human Dean could slide off, stumbling a few steps away. His silver knife was slack in his grip, and the dragon used his snout to steady the stranger, keeping an eye on the tiny young Sam sitting on his shoulder.

A large growl crackled through the air and for a second time in as many minutes, Sam found himself clinging to Dean’s collar in an attempt to keep his seat and not be spilled into the ground during a confrontation between a giant and a titan.

The older hunter jolted at the sound, falling into a crouch and at the ready in a clear ‘fight or flight’ response.

The dragon looked equally surprised by the sound, only instead of acting defensive, he looked at his stomach, then back at the Winchesters.

Maybe it was something about the expression on the dragon’s face. A face that was far larger than Sam’s older brother, titanic and only comprehensible because of the distance between them. An expression on that massive face that mirrored Dean on the rare occasion that Sam managed to embarrass him.

Or maybe it was the way Dean was as stiff as a board, a cat bristled and ready to bolt.

Sam burst out laughing.

Two matching sets of green eyes, one pair the size of Sam’s head and the other pair bigger than his entire body, both turned towards Dean’s shoulder, the tension in the air marginally reduced by confusion.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Dean growled, but Sam’s snickers didn’t stop.

“You… should see your… faces!” Sam gasped out between peals of laughter. “He sounds… just like you... when you're staring at pie!”

If Sam could have made out Dean’s expression, he would have seen offence painted over those gruff features. “You mean it’s hungry?!”

Sam slapped Dean’s neck before he could go for his gun in the hopes of calming him, and the dragon hop-skipped a step back with one leg in the air frantically cutting a negative, shaking his head at the same time to reinforce that fact. A few barked out chirps and several quick hand motions passed before he remembered they couldn’t understand sign language.

Leaning forward, the dragon took a claw and hastily scratched out a word in the bare ground he’d been laying in previously.

NO.

“No?” Dean repeated. “No, he’s not gonna eat us or no he’s not hungry?”

“Does it matter?” Sam asked in aggravation, the dragon nodding emphatically along with his light voice.

Rubbing the word out with a curled fist, the dragon swiftly replaced it with a second, then pointed a claw at Dean’s chest.

DEAN?

“How’d he…” Dean trailed off as the dragon immediately started scratching out a second word next to the first, then pointed at Dean’s shoulder.

SAMMY?

Dean could only nod, fascination replacing the wary fear in his expression as the dragon started working again at the ground. It circled Dean’s name, jabbing it with a claw, then pointed at itself.

“No, your name’s not Dean, that’s my name--"

Dean’s attempt to educate the dragon on the meaning of names was cut off by the echoing of a familiar voice calling “Dean?”

“What?!” Dean snapped, the dragon echoing him in a series of chirps as it looked to the edge of a clearing.

Two men, having arrived only seconds before, stood there in shock staring at the three in the clearing. One was wearing a flannel shirt a lot like the majority of Dean’s wardrobe, the other in a comfortable fitting trenchcoat, both with arms full of bags. Their eyes were widest when they saw Dean-- the human Dean-- staring back.

Then the taller of the two dropped the bags his arms were filled with, pre-packaged meat spilling out into the forest floor as he pulled a gun on them.

“Who the hell are you?!” he shouted as he advanced, his stance unwavering and his expression harsh.

Sam slapped his hands over his ears at the loud voice, not expecting it. Dean had his hands up, the silver knife loose in a fist. The dragon made that cutting motion again, much like when Dean thought it wanted to eat them, a series of chirps flowing from its mouth as it tried explaining things in its own language. Its wings rustled in agitation.

“Whoa! No one’s getting hurt here!” Dean said, also speaking louder than Sam was comfortable with as he tried to talk down the taller man. “We were just talking, that’s all!”

The man still standing at the edge of the clearing has his head cocked as though he was listening to a voice, then called out “Sam! Stop!”

The smaller Sam sitting on his older brother’s shoulder looked up, blinking as the guy called his name. Before he could respond, the tallest human there looked over his shoulder in response.

“He says he wasn’t hurting him,” the blue-eyed man said firmly. “Let’s hear them out.”

The dragon chirped, then pointed again at Dean’s shoulder, where Sam still cringed back from all the noise. A flow of nonsensical sounds proceeded, finished off with a tone of finality.

A tingle of new eyes on him burst across Sam’s neck, and he looked up to find everyone’s eyes on him except for his Dean (who continued to keep his hands in the air, unwilling to risk a fight with Sam so close and vulnerable).

“That’s not possible,” the tall man gasped at the same time as Dean exclaimed “You can understand him?!”

The tall man held up his hands, then made a show of disarming his gun and tucking it away. “Okay, let’s talk. Dean says you didn’t hurt him after you realized he was intelligent.”

Dean blinked. “What…?” He looked at the tall man, then frowned. “Sammy? ”

The dragon chirped an affirmative, then jabbed his thumb at himself.

“So that’s Dean!” Sam exclaimed excitedly from Dean’s shoulder, having recovered from the noise. The dragon nodded, adding several more chirps.

“And I’m Cas,” said the last man in the clearing, stepping forward next to Sam. “I assume this is what you both looked like a few years ago?”

The human-sized Sam frowned, looking at his tiny counterpart. “I was a little taller back then…” he said hesitantly. “But Dean is spot on.”

“Dude, you’re ancient,” Dean declared, and the dragon chuffed out a laugh, his jaw dropping in a draconic grin.

The older Sam glared. “It’s not my fault you’re barely out of diapers!” he snapped instinctively before reigning himself in. “Okay. Look. We clearly need to talk. Right? ” He looked at everyone for confirmation, his eyes pausing on his tiny counterpart longer than the others. “Let’s figure this out, because something clearly went wrong somewhere.”

He gestured to the ground near his draconic older brother, then pointed at that Dean warningly. “Not another word about my age, grandpa.”

Even the other Sam and Dean could hear the faked innocence in the next few chirps.

“Oh, he’s definitely you,” Sam sniggered into Dean’s ear, where no one else could hear him.

“And so you’ve been fighting together like this… for two years?” the older Sam repeated, gesturing at his tiny counterpart.

Sam nodded. It was getting easier to talk to himself after they both shared their stories. “It’s not as bad as you’d think,” he said confidently. “Though I have to say, I wasn’t ready for a dragon.”

“Drauglin,” Cas corrected, reinforced by a chirp from Dean. The dragon had snacked on the food brought to him by his mate and brother, calming the rumbling stomach. “Regular dragons are petty thieves. Drauglin are protectors of nature.”

“I know a few sprites you might want to meet,” Dean snickered, imagining Bowman’s reaction to the new trio. Or the association dragons had with fire.

“Right…” the older Sam said. “Look. Maybe we can help you out. If Dean can follow your trail, we should be able to figure out how you got here.”

“Trail?” Dean repeated in offence. “I’ll have you know I’m an expert tracker, I don’t leave a--"

The dragon chirped slyly, and Cas dutifully translated, “Your aftershave is so potent he can smell you from twenty feet away,” sending the smaller Sam into stitches of laughter.

“It’s so true!” Sam gasped out, rocking back against Dean’s neck.

Dean poked at him in annoyance, frowning. “It is not,” he complained at the dragon and Sam both.