Chapter Text
Diegos eyes dart around his unfamiliar surroundings, heart beating quickly in his chest. What the fuck happened? One moment, he was fighting alongside his siblings against more time-traveling assassins, when he saw the briefcase that Five had told them to keep an eye out for. As soon as he touched it, his head went all fuzzy, his stomach flipped, and when he opened his eyes again he was in some sleazy motel and he had a splitting headache.
First thing first, he had to check his surroundings. Nobody was currently in the motel room, but it seemed whoever was had left in a hurry. There were two cups of half-drunken coffees on a small table with books and papers scattered on it as well. The sheets on both twin-sized beds were rumpled with clothes strewn on the floor. A computer on one of the beds was still open and on. The briefcase was-
nowhere to be seen. Fuck.
He looked around the room once more, at the peeling wallpaper and flickering lights, for any sign of his ticket back home. It appeared to have vanished, or maybe it never came with him to wherever he was, or whenever he was.
He had gotten so lost in his head, he didn't hear the voices drawing closer to the room, nor the doorknob turn. Only when the voices stopped and he heard a loud "Who the fuck are you?" did he turn around.
It seemed the two inhabitants of the motel had returned. Two men, one tall and startled, kind of like a moose, the shorter one angry and mean-looking, a lot more capable of violence. Well, at least reckless and sudden violence. They both looked dangerous, bruised, and bloodied. The shorter one had a gun drawn and pointed at him, and the taller one reached somewhere behind him and pulled out a knife.
Not good. Fuck.
Diego tried saying or doing anything to convince the two men he wasn't a current threat to them if they just dropped their goddamn weapons, but his head was starting to feel fuzzy again and his ears were ringing. His bones felt heavy, and already he could feel his knees starting to buckle. Before anything could be done about it, he collapsed to the floor, blissfully unconscious.
***
Dean parked the Impala in the motel parking lot, body achy and sore. They came to the town to inspect a possible vampire nest. Three people had been found dead, completely drained of blood with strange marks on their necks. A pretty cut and dry case, but that didn't mean it wasn't a bitch to complete. Dean was ready to order some mediocre Chinese food and pass out on the lumpy motel bed while trying to ignore the blood caked under his fingernails.
"Wanna order Chinese, Sammy?" Dean said over his shoulder.
"Uh, sure," Sam responded distantly. Sam had been acting weird the entire case. Something was on his mind, but Dean was too tired to try and figure out what.
"What do you want? I saw an advertisement with some pretty sweet-looking Kung Pao chicken. Ooh, how bout some dumplings?"
"Whatever you want, Dean."
"C'mon, Sammy, you gotta give me more than that-"
He stopped abruptly when he opened their room door, eyes locked on the stranger standing in the middle of the room. "Who the fuck are you?" He brought his gun up, and he could hear Sam doing the same with his weapon. At first, he thought the person in the room was a woman because of the long hair, but when they turned he saw it was most definitely a man. A very disoriented-looking man who could only slowly blink at them with wide eyes. The guy looked pretty beat up and unaware that he was shaking. He had a knife clutched in his right hand, but it was dangling by his side tamely. For a second, it looked like the guy was trying to say something, but before he could, he was falling to the floor, almost in slow motion.
"Sonofabitch!" Dean shouted. He lunged forward, grabbing the guy mid-air before he could seriously hurt himself by hitting his head on the ground or something. He lowered the guy slowly the rest of the way until he was on his back.
"What the fuck?"
***
"We need to take him to the hospital, Dean! He could be hurt!" Sam whined.
"We can't take him to the hospital, Sam! That's, like, in the top five shittiest ideas! What if they ask questions? Or think we did this to him?"
"We can just drop him off outside or something. We can't leave him like this!" Dean rubbed his eyes tiredly. Just another goddamn problem to add to a day filled with problems.
"He could be a monster. What if he hurts someone? We can't risk that. He stays here."
"Fine," Sam huffed. "I'm taking a shower."
"Fine."
"Fine!"
Sam stormed into the bathroom, door slamming behind him.
"What're we gonna do with you, man?" Dean said, addressing the unconscious man on his floor. He couldn't do the monster test yet, in case he was too out of it to react to anything, so he opted to confiscate and hide his weapons, moving him to his bed. He did check the guy's pulse and double-checked for fangs and any other monster appearances that couldn't be as easily hidden.
Nothing so far.
Dean sighed deeply, picking up the motel phone. God, he was tired. All he wanted to do was sleep for five, maybe ten years, then take a month-long vacation when he woke up. This mystery guy was kinda ruining it.
Dean settled in the uncomfortable wooden chair that the motel offered and waited for the Chinese food to arrive.
***
12 hours later and the guy was still asleep, and it didn't look like he'd be waking up anytime soon.
"Check-outs in an hour, Dean."
"I know, I know! Quit your bitching." Dean stared at the man lying in his bed, totally lost. They sure as hell couldn't leave him here.
"We can't just leave him here."
"Thanks for the insight, Samantha. Just go out to the car, I'll figure something out."
"This is ridiculous. We don't even know him!"
"Well, why don't you keep complaining about it? I'm sure that will help!"
Sam pulled his bitch face, crossing his arms. "Whatever, jerk."
"Bitch."
Sam left, slamming the door behind him, but they did their jerk bitch thing, so he knew Sammy wasn't too mad about it.
Dean stared down, a lightbulb going off in his brain.
"Come back here, Sammy! I've got an idea!"
***
Dean was driving the Impala, Sam was in the passenger seat, and the strange man was lying in the back.
"This counts as kidnapping, Dean."
"So what? Like we've never kidnapped anybody before."
"It's different this time! He could be a completely normal person." Dean did a double-take, looking in the review mirror to look at the guy.
"This guy definitely isn't normal. Look at him! We'll wait until he wakes up, figure out his deal then drop him off somewhere. No skin off our backs."
Dean enjoyed about five minutes of peaceful driving, when he looked in the review mirror again, to see the man sitting up, looking slightly more alert than he did in the motel. He was brandishing a knife, pushing himself back against the car door.
"Pull over," the guy mumbled, blinking heavily. It looked like he was gonna pass out again.
At this point, Sam had noticed him too and was going for his gun.
"Woah, Woah! Everybody just calm down for a second!" Luckily, they weren't on the highway, and he pulled into a gas station parking lot. Once they were parked, he unbuckled and turned in his seat. The guy flinched, holding the knife up more. "We're not gonna hurt you, man! Put the knife down."
Apparently, he sounded sincere, and the guy slowly lowered his knife.
"Where did that even come from? We took it away."
"You think I only carry one knife on me?" the guy retorted.
"Fair enough," Dean said, putting his hands up in surrender.
"Who are you? Where am I? Why am I in a car?"
"One question at a time, buddy. This is my brother Sam, and I'm Dean. We're in Claremore, Oklahoma. You're in my car because you passed out in our motel room and we didn't know what to do with you." The guy seemed to think about this for a second like it was a large thing to comprehend.
"What year is it?"
If Dean had been driving, he would have swerved off the road. "What, are you some sort of time-traveler?"
The man gave him a hard stare, but he didn't deny it.
"It's 2007. That the right year for you?" Dean said mockingly.
"Yes," the guy said, and he seemed genuinely confused that it was. "What's the date?"
"April 7th."
"But that..." the guy trailed off, looking out the window like that would give him some sort of answer. "That can't be right."
"Yeah, yeah, you can have whatever sort of mental breakdown this is later. My turn to ask questions. What were you doing in our motel room?"
"I-I don't know. I was just suddenly... there?"
"So what, like teleportation?"
"I don't know!" the guy shouted, sounding frustrated. "All I know is that I was with my siblings, and then all of the sudden I wasn't."
The guy was starting to freak out, and he had a weapon. The main thing on Dean's mind was to calm him down before he or Sammy got stabbed.
"What's your name?"
He hesitated a split second before answering. "Diego."
"All right, Diego. Where you from?"
"New York."
"You grew up in New York, huh? City guy?"
"No, I-" Diego gulped, eyes squeezed shut. "I was just in New York, with my family. And then I wasn't. I don't know how I ended up in Oklahoma."
Dean gave Sam a look. He had stayed quiet this whole time, but by the looks of it, he was just as bewildered as Dean was. There was something wrong with this Diego guy, and Dean wasn't sure if he was a threat or not.
"I need to call my siblings," Diego stated, fingers pressed to his temple, wincing.
"Fine," Dean said, handing over one of his many phones. Diego gave him a pointed stare, not dialing his siblings. "Uggh, okay, just don't go anywhere man. C'mon Sammy."
With that, Sam and Dean stepped out of the Impala, which, in hindsight, probably wasn't the best decision.
***
When the two strange men, sorry, Sam and Dean, left the car, Diego took a few deep breaths, getting his bearings. When he felt a bit more stable, he dialed Allison. She was the most responsible, right? The phone rang for a few seconds before someone finally picked up.
"Hello?" Allisons voice rang through the receiver.
"Oh, thank god, listen, Allison, I'm in Oklaho-"
"Who is this?" she cut him off, voice terse.
"Uh, Diego? Look, I'm not sure what happened, but-"
"Whoever you are, this isn't funny! I'll call the cops." She sounded choked up and angry. Something was wrong.
"What do you mean? Allison? Allison?" She had hung up on him.
Fuck. What the hell is going on?
He dialed Five next. He picked up, but instead of a thirteen-year-old voice answering, it was a grown man. Except, it was definitely Five, just aged and a little wiser. At that point, he knew something was really wrong. He hung up as soon as he heard Five's adult voice, and frantically dialed the rest of his siblings. He got much of the same from everyone else. Luther told him to "Fuck off you sick bastard!" Vanya started sobbing into the receiver. Hell, he even called Klaus, just in case this was some sort of prank he came up with, but instead of Klaus answering, a different man picked up the phone.
"Hello? Klaus?" Diego said desperately, not even trying to keep the worry out of his voice.
"This is Dave. Klaus isn't here right now. What do you need?"
"N-nothing. W-w-wrong number." Diego remembered Klaus talking about Dave, and how he left him behind when he traveled back to world war ll. Whatever was happening was beyond fucked up. He didn't even try calling Ben. When he died, they didn't have phones, so Diego wouldn't even know what number to try.
He threw the phone across the car, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"What the fuck? What the actual fuck?" He couldn't breathe. He pinched his arm. Maybe this was some sort of weird, very real feeling dream? Maybe he hit his head and was in a coma? Maybe he had finally snapped and was imagining everything.
His heart was beating rapidly in his chest. How the hell was he gonna get home? Where ever home was? His siblings would come to get him, right? He wasn't stuck in some parallel universe where something happened to him, right?
He was startled out of his mind from a sharp knocking on the window. Dean was leaning down, peering at him.
"Everything okay in there, man?" The car door opened, and Diego moved farther away from Dean when he got closer. "What's wrong?"
"Where am I?"
"I already told you. Claremore, Oklahoma. It's April 7th, 2007."
"But where am I? Apparently, I died or something. M-my siblings aren't the same, b-b-but it's the exact same fucking d-date. This place isn't right. I'm n-not in the same place." Diego was shaking now, and tears were threatening to spill down his face. Usually, he had better self-control than this, but everything was so goddamn confusing, he had a killer headache, and he felt so tired. It wasn't helping that Dean was looking at him like he was crazy.
"Deep breathes, man. Try to calm down," Dean said, moving in the back seat beside him. "Tell me what to do."
"I-I-I-I c-c-can't-" damnit, his god damn stutter. Really wasn't being helpful right now.
"Shhh, it's okay. Stay here, alright? I'll get you some water. You hungry? Never mind, I'll get you some food too. Just... yeah, stay."
Jeez, Dean was just as stressed as him. He looked out the window and saw Dean arguing with his brother. There were a lot of hand motions before they seemed to land on an agreement, and Dean went into the small convenience store. Sam started walking to the car, taking his brother's place next to Diego. He hunched down, and Diego knew he was trying to make himself smaller, less threatening.
"I-it's okay," he said.
"Excuse me?" Sam said, and damn, the guy had some pretty intense puppy dog eyes. Christ, this guy was just a kid.
"My brother d-does it too. T-tries shrinking himself d-d-down. Trust m-me, it doesn't work."
Sam listened, straightening himself out so he wasn't slouching as much.
"Your brothers a big guy, I'm guessing?"
"Even bigger than you," Diego said, smiling to himself. And yeah, this was helping. "Kind of looks like a gorilla."
Sam smiled at that, which helped calm Diego a little. He pressed the palm of his hands against his eyes, un-tensing his shoulders. At that moment, Dean came back to the car. He switched spots with Sam, handing Diego a bottle of water and trail mix, the kind with M&M's.
"Thanks." He drank greedily, and damn he didn't realize how thirsty he was. Nor hungry, because as soon as he tore into the trail mix and left the bag empty, his stomach was growling for more.
"How bout some fast food?" Dean announced to everyone. Although weary, Diego nodded. He was too hungry to care about possible kidnappers, although Dean and Sam seemed normal enough. "Alright!" Dean clapped his hands together, getting out and going to the driver's seat. Once they were all in, Diego let his head rest against the window, wanting nothing more than to go home.