Note: I know I just posted yesterday and it was a bit of a doozy of a chapter. But I have three chapters written rn just waiting to be posted, and it feels strange being that far ahead. Considering that I spent three months AWOL, I think y'all earned an extra chapter or two. So here's one today!

Now.

Oh my chuck. This is chapter 100. How? No, seriously. How?!

Thanks so much for being consistently kind and awesome, babes <3 I couldn't have gotten here without you. 

This chapter was requested over a year ago (pathetic, I know) by two people (silverse and Phoenix_Queen), and it's a tag to 10.12 About a Boy. So, if you haven't seen that episode, here's your SPOILER ALERT!

Anna is sixteen.

My Younger Older Brother

Anna frowned deeply, eyes fixed on the page before her. She had one hand burrowed in her curly hair and the other pressed against the book on the floor in front of her. She leaned back against Dean's bed and felt his leg brush against the back of her head.

"This makes no sense," she murmured.

"Try sitting on a chair like a normal person," Dean suggested. "The oxygen might help."

"That's counterintuitive," Anna murmured, distracted. She stared at the page again.

"What?" Dean asked, his voice so close to her ear that the noise startled her.

Anna turned toward the sound and stopped when her nose was less than an inch from her brother's. "What?" she repeated.

Dean made an annoyed sound and straightened. Anna watched him open up the laptop that had been lying beside him on the bed. Then she turned her gaze back down to the lore book on the floor in front of her. Well, technically it wasn't what one would traditionally call a lore book. It sure was written in the same convoluted, old-fashioned manner, though.

"This is stupid," Anna said decidedly not even a full minute later. "Why can nobody say what they mean? And why do all these people get to talk for God? They don't even know him... Like, what if they're wrong?"

"Anna, this isn't English class, alright? You can quit analyzing the hell out of everything."

"Sorry, it's just... I expected more, you know? It's just a bunch of stories and letters. Sure, I guess there's something cool about it from a historical perspective but..."

"Do me a favor and don't ever get into a debate with a priest, Rugrat," Dean said, and this time he was the one who was only half-engaged in their conversation.

Anna glanced down at the book one more time before pivoting so she was facing the bed and then getting to her feet. "I think I'd win," she told him.

"You would," Dean promised and shot her a wink which let her know he'd still been listening.

"It's still dumb, though. It's the Bible. It's got a reputation to live up to."

"Anna, just read it."

"I don't want to," Anna admitted tiredly and sat down on the foot of the bed. There was hardly enough room, and her legs were overlapping Dean's as she leaned back until her shoulders and head were hanging upside down off the side of the bed.

"Suit yourself," Dean said indifferently. "But you don't get another lore book to study until you get through it."

Anna sighed, feeling the blood rush into her head. It was almost nice for a second, and then it started to make her feel sick. But she didn't have the energy to move, so she stayed there. "Do you think there's something in there?" she asked sullenly. The question had been on her mind for a while, and she figured it was high time she simply ask it.

"I can't hear you unless you sit up."

Anna gripped the sheets of the bed in order to pull herself upright. The dizziness lasted a little while, but then she asked again, "Do you think there's something in there? Something we missed?"

Dean's attention shifted entirely from the computer screen to her face. "Honestly? No."

"Then what's the point?" Anna asked. "I know the story. Cain and Abel. I get it. I'm sure Sam's read this thing twenty times. You've probably read it at least three times, and you don't usually even read things once."

Dean looked offended for about half a second, and then he made a face that said fair enough.

"If I'm gonna study lore, can't it at least be something that's gonna help you?"

"That's not your job."

Anna made a face of bafflement. "What? It's the one thing I could actually do to help with this whole mess." She had to chase Dean's eyes when they turned back to the screen of his laptop. "Dean," she goaded in frustration.

"The farther from this you stay, the better," Dean told her simply.

"But-"

"Anna, go do your homework."

All she could do was scoff, speechless. She'd been shut down in this same way a million times, and it never failed to shock her. But getting angry or even getting sad... it wouldn't change anything. Anna had learned over the years that she simply didn't get a say in this subject. Not until she was an adult. Then, she figured, she would get all the say there was. So instead of arguing any further, Anna just said, "I already did my homework."

"All of it?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"The stuff that didn't make me wanna drink acid."

"Since when do you have a problem drinking acid?"

"You're hilarious, but I meant actual acid," Anna remarked. "Not Monster."

She leaned back again, letting the ends of her hair graze the floor and her blood crowd into her forehead and around her eyes. It was a funny sort of control this feeling gave her: her head felt like it was going to burst like a pinata at any given moment, but all she had to do to normalize her body again was to sit up.

"Hey," Sam suddenly said from the doorway.

Anna dragged herself into a sitting position again. "Hey."

"Hey," Dean echoed.

"Caught a case," Sam said, more to Dean than to Anna. She noticed then that he had a tablet in his hand. She watched it change hands and then leaned over Dean's shoulder to see the article he was scanning. "Apparently something's taking people and leaving their clothes."

Anna wrinkled her nose and looked to Dean for his reaction.

He bobbed his eyebrows in a way that she didn't like. He was so dirty minded. But then he handed the tablet back to Sam. "Alright, why don't you check it out? I'll hold down the fort." As he said the last bit, he placed a hand on Anna's head as if she was a responsibility that he would normally offer to stay home and take care of.

But Anna furrowed her eyebrows and turned slowly to look at him. Talk about acting weird.

"Anna, why don't you go do your homework," Sam suggested.

"You know, you could just ask me to leave the room," she complained and got up begrudgingly. She stepped over the Bible on the floor and ducked out into the hallway. She considered staying for a minute to eavesdrop. But there was no point. She knew what they would talk about, and she knew how it would end.

So she went to the kitchen, cracked open a can of Monster, sat down heavily in a chair, and waited for someone to come out and announce that they were leaving.

()()()

"Hey," Anna said in surprise as Sam dropped into the driver's seat of the car. She sat up in the backseat and set aside the novel she'd been reading. "Where's Dean?"

"He's staying here to talk up the locals," Sam replied, then gestured for Anna to come sit in the front.

She gladly opened the back door and stepped outside for a second to switch seats. She'd taken her shoes off for the car ride, so her purple and blue socks were the only protection her feet had against the warmth of the sidewalk beneath them. As she closed the passenger door, Anna looked over at Sam again. "So, did that guy tell you anything?"

Sam bobbed his eyebrows. "Told us a lot. More than we wanted to know."

Anna made a face. She didn't figure she wanted to know what that meant. "Anything helpful?" she amended.

"Bright light," Sam said. "Smelled flowers. That's about it. But the guy wasn't really in his right mind. I mean, I don't know how much of his story we can even trust."

"Well, that sucks," Anna grumbled. She started brainstorming what those two details could mean, though. Bright lights sometimes meant angels, but usually there were other signs too. And since when did angels kidnap random people and leave their clothes behind? Flowers... flowers didn't mean anything that she could think of. Maybe the dude really hadn't known what he was talking about. "So where're we going?" Anna asked.

"I'm gonna bring you to the motel, and then I'm gonna go look at the vic's apartment, see if there's anything there. Maybe his landlord can tell us something."

Anna made a face. "I could go with you," she tried.

"Anna, you need to do some schoolwork," Sam told her regretfully. He looked at her then back at the road. "And anyway, you know we don't like you getting involved in these cases."

"Sam, come on. I work cases when I'm on break."

"That's different."

Anna didn't see how. But it wasn't very often that she totally understood either of her brothers' perspectives.

"Sorry, Ladybug, but I'm dropping you off at the motel."

Anna sighed and slouched lower in her seat. What was the point in coming along on hunts if she wasn't going to do anything? She could have done her homework at the bunker. And if she'd stayed home, she could have seen her friends and watched Netflix and eaten Kraft and slept in her own bed.

()()()

Maybe Sam wouldn't bring her with him, but he couldn't stop her from doing research.

Anna had her laptop open in front of her, pictures of different sorts of flowers filling her screen. She clicked over to one of the other handful of tabs she had open, and there was the article from the local news site detailing the missing persons case.

She couldn't for the life of her figure out how the scent of flowers could be related to an abduction.

Of course, if Sam had been serious about how looney that witness was, it was possible that there hadn't been any flowers at all.

Anna sighed. If that information turned out not to be reliable then all of her research would be for nothing.

She opened a new tab in a private window and searched supernatural entities AND flowers.

She found a number or links to articles about nature spirits and faes. But that wasn't right. The guy had been taken from a parking lot. So she figured she could try typing in her ideas about what it could be and then add the search term flowers.

Angels AND flowers, she tried.

Anna squinted and leaned forward in her chair, chewing absentmindedly on her bottom lip as the search results loaded. Great, so her computer was giving her a list of flowers that were named after angels now. She tossed her head back dramatically. Talk about annoying.

But since she had nothing else to go on, Anna tried again. And again. And again. She came up empty every single time.

She was still looking when Sam walked in, his lips pursed in thoughtful frustration. "Hey," she greeted. "Did they tell you something?"

"How's the homework?" Sam shot back.

"Done," Anna lied and shut her computer.

"Really?"

She didn't know how he did that, but she sure wished he would stop. "No. Will you answer my question now?"

Sam sighed. "Tell me you didn't just spend the last two hours researching the case."

"I didn't just spend the last two hours researching the case," Anna recited dryly.

"J.P., our victim? He wasn't doing so hot."

Anna's lip curled and nose wrinkled in confusion. "Meaning?"

Sam sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I gotta call Dean," was all he said. "Do your homework," he requested. "Actually do it."

That was just about the last thing she wanted to do. But Anna pulled her laptop toward herself and opened it again. She scrolled through the last set of search results and made meaningless noises with her mouth absently. There was no solid information to be found here, so she eavesdropped instead as Sam got Dean on the phone.

"Not great," Sam said, no 'hello' before the boys got right to business.

Anna always thought it was weird that they functioned like that when they were on the job. Even when they were at the grocery store calling simply to ask whether there was any beer left at the bunker, they said, 'hey' before getting down to business.

"Turns out J.P. was about three days from getting evicted." There was a pause as Dean replied. "His landlord said the guy blasted Neil Diamond 24/7."

"Ew," Anna reacted, inadvertently giving herself away.

"Anna, do your homework," Sam said over his shoulder, then sat down on the edge of one of the beds. "And apparently his bathroom was like, and I quote, 'Looking into the devil's butt.'" There was another pause and Sam snorted. "And accurate. I saw it."

Poor guy. That didn't sound too fun. Anna was suddenly feeling less bitter that she hadn't been allowed to go with Sam to J.P.'s apartment.

"Don't," Sam said in a familiar tone. So Dean had probably been about to say something inappropriate. When wasn't he? "So, you got anything?"

"Put him on speaker," Anna requested. She knew it was a long shot, so she wasn't surprised when Sam's response was just to point at her backpack with an eyebrow raised at her and an otherwise stern expression.

Dean apparently hadn't had much to say anyway, since Sam was speaking again after just a little while. "And what?" There was only a second more before he spoke again. "Dean? Hello?"

Anna perked up, this time feeling a jolt of panic in her chest. "What?" she asked pushing herself out of her chair and nearly tripping over her backpack in her hurry. "What's wrong?"

Sam shushed her and said Dean's name again. But clearly there was no response, because he put his phone back in his pocket and started for the door. "I'll be right back," he promised.

"What are you talking about? Is he okay?"

"He said he had something, Ladybug," Sam told her, gesturing with both hands for her to calm down. "I'm sure he's fine."

Anna couldn't help her worry, though. "Are we gonna go meet him?"

"I am. You're not. Stay here."

"But-"

"Anna, if he actually has something, then this could be dangerous. You're not coming."

"Sam, come on."

"Do your homework," Sam reminded her once more before he opened the door and disappeared through it.

Anna watched the door close behind her brother and sighed heavily, her body deflating. She'd been almost excited to get out of the bunker with the boys and go on a hunt again, even if she had known that she wasn't likely to get a chance to really be a part of the hunt. But this day was getting progressively more annoying the longer it went on.

Not only was she bored and unable to find anything helpful for the hunt. But now the boys were heading out to a potentially dangerous situation, and she was supposed to stay back and do her homework? Come on.

()()()

"What do you mean it got him?" Anna asked, not bothering to contain the panic in her voice.

"We'll find him, Anna," Sam promised. He was looking her right in the eye, and she knew he wasn't lying to her. But for the time being, that did nothing to comfort her. "I found his gun, but he's gone. It's just like what happened to the others. And there was flower dust at the crime scene."

Anna was chewing on her bottom lip, one hand buried in her curly hair and the other on her hip as she thought through all this information. They had no evidence that the people this thing was taking were being killed, and that was really important. Plus, they were talking about Dean. Even without his gun, he was smart and resourceful enough to get out of just about any situation. He would be okay. She had to trust that and get her head in the game so that she could help Sam however possible.

She thought about all the research she'd done earlier. She'd found very little evidence linking flowers to supernatural phenomenon. But there was something. "What color was it?" she asked.

"What?"

"The flowers," Anna said impatiently. "What color was the flower dust?"

"Yellow," Sam said. "Do you know what it is?"

"I'm gonna figure it out," Anna told him. "I found a bunch of lore earlier, but none of it meant anything, cause I couldn't sort through it. You got anything else?" she asked hopefully. "Literally anything?"

"It left his stuff behind," he said. "Just like the others. That's all I got right now. But I'm gonna find more, Anna. I promise."

He had his laptop out a couple minutes later, and they were sitting across from each other. "Yarrow," Anna said. "I remembered it from before, and it looks like it's been used in transfiguration spells for centuries. Maybe that's what its doing to them. Changing their form instead of just nabbing them. You think... you think that's safe?"

She looked at Sam. He was tense with his own worry. His face was tight, his eyebrows pulled down. "I don't know, Ladybug. It doesn't sound good, but it could definitely be worse."

Anna nodded and looked down at her computer screen again. She didn't have time to say anything else or start researching how to combat this spell before there was a knock at the door. She and Sam exchanged suspicious looks and then both their gazes tracked over to the door. Sam pulled out his gun and turned the safety off before approaching the door cautiously. Anna stayed in her seat, but she pulled her backpack into her lap. If she needed it, there was a pen knife in the front pocket that she could pull out.

But Sam swung the door open to reveal a kid. Anna's age or... well, maybe even younger. "Yeah?" Sam asked slowly. His confusion was audible, and Anna could relate. They were a little busy to be dealing with stray kids at the moment.

But the teenager smirked, adjusted the red hat on his head and said, "Hiya, Sammy."

Anna's jaw dropped. It couldn't be. But she released her grip on her backpack.

Sam lowered his gun. "Dean?"

And Anna just breathed, "What the fuck."

"Don't say fuck," Dean told her, but his voice cracked with the stern tone, and Anna couldn't help the high-pitched giggle that came out of her. "This isn't funny."

"W-wait, but you're a-" Sam stammered, watching as Dean walked over to the bathroom and then to the bed.

He picked up one of the duffels and emptied it onto the table. Anna had to pull her laptop out of the way and set it on one of the empty chairs.

"Yep," Dean said simply.

"How?"

"No clue," Dean said, and he didn't sound happy about it. Dean picked up his gun and smiled at it like he'd missed it dearly. He loaded his gun. "Some scar-faced lookin' dude. Bright light. Next thing I know I wake up lookin' like Bieber."

"You look more like that kid from Riverdale," Anna corrected. But she got an unimpressed glare in return, and as strange as it looked on Dean's teenage face, it still made her raise her hands in surrender. She didn't want to mess with teenage Dean any more than she would have wanted to mess with 30-something Dean. Jeez, how old was Dean now?

"Why would someone turn you into a-"

"Don't know," Dean said, cutting their brother off. "Don't care," he added and stuffed his gun in the back of his jeans. "Hey, we got any grenades?"

Anna made a face of shock and excitement. "Awesome," she breathed.

"Don't get excited," Dean told her sternly. "They're not for you."

"What?" Anna pouted. "That's not fair. You're not even older than me anymore." She put her hands on her hips and looked at her older brother.

Dean was barely an inch taller than her now, and he had such a baby face. It was strange looking at him. He had the same basic facial structure, but he hadn't grown into any of it yet. Anna hoped that meant she was gonna be prettier when she got older. Right now she was fully in an awkward stage between the freckles and the acne and the chubby cheeks.

"Nobody needs grenades," Sam said, waving his hands between his siblings to get their attention. Anna looked up at him and realized that he was right; they had more pressing matters at hand. "Dean, wait up, okay? Just wait a second. Talk to me."

Dean tried to move past Sam, but the younger (older?) of the two stopped the older (younger?) one. Anna didn't imagine Dean was too pleased that Sam could stop him so easily.

But she couldn't help her own little shit-eating grin. She put a hand to her face to cover her mouth, and while she smiled behind it, she frowned with her eyes, trying to look serious.

"Really, Sam? Now? I got no grass on the infield, and a girls's gonna die. Sorry if I'm not in a chatty mood. Look, you wanted me back in the game. I'm back in the damn game." He shoved past Sam, and the only reason he was able to get past him this time was because Sam didn't bother trying to stop him. "Come on," Dean snapped.

Anna bounded into action, snatching her jacket off the bedpost nearby and slipping her OSIRIS sneakers onto her feet. Dean didn't sound happy. In fact, he was talking like he was pissed off. Anna figured they would all feel better once this case was over.

"Ah ah," Dean said and waved a finger at her. "Not you, Runt-" He paused, made an unhappy face and looked down at himself. But he seemed to gather himself and looked back at Anna. "You're stayin' put."

"What?" Anna snapped. "You can't tell me what to do. You're like, thirteen."

"Fourteen," Dean snapped. "And I still got my brain."

"Well, good for you, but I'm older than you. So that means I'm in charge."

The look of pure rage that entered Dean's eyes would have made Anna cower if her brother had still been over six feet tall. But instead it just made her giggle. "Aw," she said and looked over at Sam. "Oh," she said then, disappointed. "I guess Sam's in charge."

"Yeah, and Dean's right," Sam told her, masking a smile at her teasing of their older (younger?) brother. "This thing took twenty years off Dean's life. Anna, you don't have twenty years to lose."

Anna's shoulders fell in disappointment. But she couldn't argue with that. "Who says I'm gonna get whammied by it at all?" she tried anyway.

"It got me," Dean reminded her, still salty. "You're stayin'. End of story."

"Man, for some reason I hate it even more when you bench me lookin' all Archie," Anna said and wrinkled her nose in frustration. "Fine. But I'm still older than you."

"You are not-"

"Dean," Sam said, smiling slightly and pushing their brother toward the door. "Dean, come on. She's just teasing you."

"I'm frickin' twenty years older than her, Sam. She can't-"

"Not anymore," Anna said. She felt quite satisfied with herself at how well she'd managed to get his goat.

But then the door closed behind the boys, and she was alone.

()()()

Anna stood between the boys as they handed Tina, the girl they'd saved working the case, a wad of cash from their wallets. She didn't know the lady, but she'd gotten the basics. Tina had been hexed just before Dean, and they'd broken the spell but in doing so, essentially fated Tina to be stuck in her fourteen-year-old body forever. Which sounded awful. Anna didn't even like her sixteen year old body, and she remembered being even more awkward at fourteen.

"Alright," Sam said. "Here you go. It's all the cash we got."

"Thanks," Tina said. "For everything."

"You stay safe out there, you hear?" Dean told her.

Anna looked up at him. He was way taller than her again, and his voice was strong and low again. He was back to his old, ginormous, paternal self.

"I will," Tina said, and Anna was surprised when she gave Dean a hug and kissed him on the cheek. "And, hey, we'll always have the Royale Motel, right?"

It seemed like maybe she was missing something about this chick. But honestly, she didn't really care. She was tired and a little annoyed. She'd been dragged out here for this case only to get sidelined and made to worry for no reason. Sure, it had been fun teasing Dean, but the fun had ended way too soon. And now he was totally going to get her back.

Sure enough, no sooner was Tina at the bus station than Dean rested his elbow directly on top of Anna's head. "So, Shorty..."

"Shut up," Anna drawled, already fed up.

"Oh, you don't like that one? How about Anklebiter?"

"Dean, come on," she begged.

"Munchkin."

"Stop it."

"Runt."

"Dean," Anna warned.

"Rugrat."

It was just about impossible to get mad over that one, though. Anna shook her head at her brother and crossed her arms over her chest. But she couldn't help but give the faintest smile. Of course, Dean noticed, and he dragged her into a loose head lock. But he let her go not long after and just kept his arm slung over her shoulders.

Honestly, it wasn't that bad being younger sometimes.

La Fin