Sam would most likely spend his time at the size he’s used to. It’s been a very long time since he was human, and his knack aside, it’s jarring to be out and about with humans around. Dean or their close friends are one thing, but now he’ll be facing people that might be just like the Mangas family. There’s no way to know.
Dean would be thrilled, and now they’ve got an even better secret weapon. Sam can slip through the walls and get into places no human can go, and now he can switch back to full-size if he’s in trouble!
I actually used to try and keep a running word count of the chapters we’d write, but I since had to give up on it because we just have too many chapters to keep up with. Add that to the fact that every time we edit a chapter, the word count changes so I had to flop and give up. Tooooo much.
Luckily, as for what we’ve already got posted, Archive of Our Own is a wonderful website to post your stories. It keeps a running count of everything you post! So I know how much I have posted between all my different stories, and once chapters are posted it gets added to the total.
Current word count of all things posted:
That is just some crazy number of words, and I wouldn’t be surprised if what we have saved and waiting to be edited can come close to rivaling it. The horror story is our longest story we’ve written (which is why it takes so damn long to finish editing), and is at least 220k words by itself, based on my last count before I gave up.
If you’re ever curious about what the current word count of posted things is, drop me a line and I’ll dig up the number!
Thanks for clearing that up! It just definitely feels like the poll gets a lot of complaints whenever it’s time to start and I get fed up with it all. We want everyone to feel involved, but we don’t want favoritism so yeah. The poll was the best way to randomize it all.
I chose Jacob Andris for this one. The number corresponds to “Ice Cream”, which was a tough one to place until @nightmares06 gave me a suggestion. This takes place when Jacob is 14, in the Supernatural AU that she and I collaborated on, Brothers Adopted (find out more about it here).
Reading Time: ~5-10 minutes
Jacob had been drawn outside to the tinny sound of the ice cream van, along with a gaggle of other youth ranging from his mid-teen age to a couple kids barely past the toddler stage, clutching their mothers’ hands and pointing out what they wanted from the colorful menu splashed on the side of the van. His mom was out, so she couldn’t even try to discourage him from indulging in something for himself.
They were on vacation; weren’t they supposed to be treating themselves a little?
It was the first road trip he’d been able to take with family in a long time. His mother didn’t like to drive long distances too often, and she had trouble getting the time off work to make a trip in the first place. That, coupled with the fact that Jacob was only 14 and thus not permitted to drive, meant that this trip took a lot more planning ahead than many road trips tended to.
Jacob made sure to wait towards the back of the group crowded around the van. The smiling ice cream vendor took orders from the younger kids, patiently waiting for them to make up their minds and taking their piles of change with a good-natured laugh. By the time the rest had been served, Jacob had been standing there with his hands in his gray hoodie pocket for nearly ten minutes.
“Oh, I didn’t forget ya, kiddo, I might just have something left for you,” the man greeted as Jacob finally approached him. “What’ll ya have?”
Jacob smiled back, put at ease by the man’s cheerful nature. He was willing to bet that attitude sold more ice cream than the bored looks of some vendors. “I’ll just have an ice cream sandwich, dude,” he replied, already digging into his jeans pocket for his money.
“That’ll be two-fifty,” the vendor replied, before turning to rummage in one of his freezers. Jacob found two crumpled ones in his pocket, and sorted out enough coins to make up the rest. These he placed in the man’s hand just as he turned back with Jacob’s purchase ready. “Thanks bud, enjoy it!”
“You bet,” Jacob replied, stepping back from the curb so the van could pull away and find another neighborhood to entice.
Jacob unwrapped his prize on the way back to the motel room. The breeze carried the scents of the nearby fields mixed with the pungent odor of asphalt from the parking lot. The wide dome of the Kansas sky was already tinting in yellow and pink, signalling a coming sunset. Jacob’s mom had headed out to get some food and supplies (all their planning and she’d forgotten her toothbrush).
He paused at the door of their room to glance back out over the parking lot. The motel wasn’t very busy, with most of its parking stalls empty. A flickering Vacancy! sign desperately called for more guests, right underneath the big moniker of the motel itself: Trails West.
After watching the sky a few minutes, Jacob wandered back into the room. He locked the door not out of paranoia, but out of respect for his mom’s wishes; she didn’t want someone to barge in at any point.
Facing the room, Jacob almost swore he saw a small shape darting under the dresser. He paused with his eyebrows raised, before shrugging and ambling into the room without concern. They were only there for the night, and the mice probably wouldn’t do any harm. Just don’t let mom spot you, little guys, he warned them in his head.
He flopped onto his bed with the remainder of his ice cream and grabbed the remote to turn on the TV. He absently unclasped his necklace, a twine choker with a single green bead, to set it safely on the nightstand. After that, he settled in, already thinking with excitement of the day ahead of them.
Jacob was nearly done with his treat when a knock came at the door. He tilted his head and glanced at the clock, wondering if his mom was back already. Then, with a shrug, he stood to answer the door. The wrapper from the ice cream was tossed into the bin on the way, and he unlocked the door to open it and see who’d come knocking.
Note: This prompt is canon to Brothers Adopted, and goes hand-in-hand with the prompt received by @neonthewrite for ice cream – Jacob. See the other half of the prompt here.
The day was as beautiful as a day could get. The warm sun above, birds chirping in the trees.
Children gathering by the ice cream truck.
Celeste contented herself watching from a distance. Her glamor was perfect, and she could spy on all the children around the area like this with ease. The baby carriage in front of her sealed off the disguise, blending her in with the other moms that hovered around, watching their children run to get sweets from the ice cream man.
After ten years of waiting for that other child to resurface, Celeste had her eyes on a new target.
Her failure to catch both Winchester boys still stung at her. That day, more than any other day in her long life, stood out. The punishments alone left scars that no one would ever see.
But her master knew, and that’s all that mattered. She couldn’t fail again.
She grit her teeth, meandering so she had more distance from the mothers that cooed over her ‘child,’ a creation of air and light that appeared real enough to any untrained human eyes. She wanted to focus.
Her target was a little old for her normal tastes. Normally, she’d go for a younger kid. They were more adaptable. They had more opportunity to grow into the benefits the magic would give them. These humans thought it was a curse, to end up so small, but if they realized the potential…
Of course, not everyone got abilities that were useful. Without seeing Sam for herself, she had no way of knowing what gift he’d been given. Children were so adaptable, but had they chosen wrong when they’d targeted the Winchesters? She had been certain those brothers would be the ones, but they she’d failed to curse them both, and been chased out before seeing how Sam had made out.
Maybe today she would find out. See if her experiment had been successful, or if she needed to find new victims in yet another town.
The kid hovered at the back of the line. He was the tallest one there, and with a lean, strong build. She looked forward to seeing what became of him, though she doubted he’d appreciate the gift. His hoodie on during the warm day made him stand out. Easy to track and watch.
When at last he had his ice cream, she marked the motel room he vanished into. She wondered at her theory, that there were others of the little people in the walls. Perhaps today she could prove that theory, once he was given his gift.
A cruel smile crossed her face, and she strode deliberately across the parking lot. One elegant hand reached up to knock on the door.
He would be hers, just like Sam and so many others had before him.
Can you see Sam’s face when the door opens and in strolls his older brother, predictable knock and all to announce he’s there, only there’s a kid, and god he looks so familiar and then Sam realizes it’s the Dean he remembers from right when he got cursed…
So much to take in all at once.
Dean seems so small, even though he still towers over Sam. His hands are much thinner, and his fingers shorter. He has to pull the bench seat of the Impala so far up that Sam can see his little metal hideout peeking out if he peers off the back of the seat.
And Sam looks bigger to Dean because even though Sam hasn’t changed, Dean’s gotten a lot shorter himself. Scrawny kiddo wearing oversized clothes, they better get him back to normal soon!
Like, I’m really excited for the poll and I can’t wait for it to start. It’s one of my favorite things to do. We’ve been hard at work trying to get all the second stories in each AU are ready to go as well for afterwards when we start adding those to it. And charting out the new storylines we keep coming up with (we can never stop! XD ).
Oscar couldn’t sleep. He had a huge pillow to rest on and a warm shirt to curl up in, but his attention was focused away from them. At night, sometimes, he was up and about searching for food, after all. He was used to sleeping when he was tired, and at the moment he wasn’t tired.
He sat up on the pillow with his legs stretched out in front of himself and his hands braced on the plushy surface beneath him. Nearby, he could hear the quiet pattern of Sam breathing, sprawled under the shirt-blanket. Sam was a little more used to sleeping every night, or most every night.
Dean’s breathing was much easier to hear. His huge lungs were bigger than Oscar’s home in the walls. Probably. Those breaths created little breezes back and forth over the pillow, with the way Dean had hugged it protectively close. Oscar had stayed in the big motel room more and more often as the days wore by. He spent so much time with his friends, and couldn’t be happier.
It wasn’t doubt or even fear for the big, wide open room that kept Oscar awake now. For once, his reason was peaceful and without worry. He stared at the window of the motel room, where the edge of a curtain had gotten caught in just away that left it hanging open a few inches.
To someone who barely stood over two inches tall, it was a wide break in the fabric indeed. Oscar stared at the sky beyond that window in awe. The streetlamp outside had flickered out earlier, and after that, Oscar couldn’t look away.
Oscar could see the stars out there.
Little twinkling lights seemed to peek back at him. Oscar had only ever seen the daytime sky with them, so far. By the time night fell, they were always safely back in the room to watch TV or run and play (sometimes with Dean trying to catch Sam and Oscar as they laughed and scurried away).
Oscar sighed contentedly and lay back down to draw some of the shirt over himself. He curled up, but made sure he could still see that small space between the curtains. He fell asleep watching the stars for the first time in his life.
Unfortunately, you won’t be seeing the giant Jacob story in the poll for some time.
For personal reasons, I will never start posting a story that’s unfinished. We are currently in the process of writing the story, and then it will need to be edited and beta’d by one of our wonderful beta readers. Your patience will be rewarded, and while my OCD and attempt at perfectionism may seem annoying when I won’t post stories instantly, you will get a fuller and richer story when it’s completed to our liking.
Brothers Apart 