@torchmlp guessed it, so we all get to read it! #lald is short for Live and Let Die, a saying that Stan Baker will hold in his heart after how his life changes because of two hunters and their intrusion on his life!
Just when Stan was about to fall asleep, a fingertip brushed against the tiny flame of hair. Stan was instantly alert, propping himself up on an elbow to look up at Nicholas expectantly to see what he wanted.
“Do you love me, Stan?” Nicholas asked, leaning down so his eyes were closer to Stan’s level.
“Yessir,” Stan answered without hesitation.
“And are you happy with me?”
“Yessir.”
The witch would ask these questions every once in a while, like a test of Stan’s loyalty. Of course Stan was loyal to Nicholas. It didn’t matter if the witch was volatile, if any little thing could set him off and provoke him to punish Stan in one way or another.
Dean’s not the type to go out and buy fruit he doesn’t need, so this probably isn’t something you’ll find with the Winchester pair even if it occurred to them to freeze food. It is, however, something that John Watson thought of, though he didn’t pick a grape when he found an ice pack he could use for his extra-smol patients:
John went to the freezer for a cold pack. After what Sam had gone through with the ice packs for his bruises, the doctor spent one of his days off scouring the internet for friendlier, less messy alternatives to ice. After finding something surprising, John went out and bought a bag of mini marshmallows to keep in the freezer. Apparently they absorbed the cold really well, and since they were soft they were easier to apply to sore or achy spots on the body. Dean wouldn’t have to deal with the wetness of melting ice, and he’d have something sweet to nibble on later if he liked.
As strange as it was, it was a better option, theoretically.
Tearing open the plastic bag, John fished one marshmallow out and quickly placed it in front of Dean before the heat from his fingers could pass into it. “Cold pack,” he explained, fishing around a drawer for a fastener to keep the bag shut when he put it away.
Dean pushed himself up with a grunt, dubiously eyeing the offerings left next to him. “Marshmallow?” he questioned, picking it up. With a mental shrug, he held it to his forehead. “Oh, that hits the spot,” he declared, propping his elbow on his knee so he could stay sitting up.
You’ve got it! #sb stands for Something Borrowed, and the something that gets borrowed is……..
Jacob!
(Our working titles for this were Borrowed Without Permission and An Unexpected Journey, so you can imagine how fabulous this is going to go for wee Jake).
The rumbling in the floor died out with the giant no longer in motion, and Jacob stared with wide, stunned eyes at the hand that had become a wall to him. He was less than four inches tall; that hand dwarfed him so easily it didn’t even feel real. He could see minuscule scars and calluses in the thick skin, details he probably wouldn’t even notice if he wasn’t so damn small.
Twisting around with the thought of darting back under the dresser, he found another hand blocking his way. Jacob was trapped between hands big enough to crush him with just a few fingers.
That realization settled in the pit of his stomach, and finally prompted him to look up.
Looming overhead was a giant, grinning face, smug for having caught him so easily. Jacob still couldn’t see the real motive in that face, even though he could see more than half of it now. He just saw someone smirking down at him, someone easily twenty times his own size. He was scared.
Legs shaking and nowhere to run to, Jacob held his hands up weakly. “W-wait,” he said, unsure if his voice even carried up enough for the man to hear.
Dean barely noticed Jacob talking, too riveted on the tiny teenager he’d trapped. He moved one of his hands quickly towards Jacob, knocking the kid’s feet out from under him and tipping him onto the palm of his hand with the tiniest yelp of surprise Dean had ever heard. Despite the fact that all of Jacob’s weight tumbled into his hand, Dean could barely feel him lying there.
Fascinated, Dean lifted Jacob up into the air, his intent green eyes taking in every one of Jacob’s few inches. The kid was tiny, not even stretching all the way from one side of Dean’s palm to the other. He was wearing a hoodie, slightly too large for his frame, along with jeans. Dean curiously pinched one of the tiny hands between two fingers, feeling the soft skin and precise movements of little fingers.
“Dude!” Dean couldn’t keep in the exclamation, earning a startled flinch from Jacob. “The news wasn’t kidding about you, was it?”
Since the title was guessed a bit ago, the sneak peek for M&Ms and Lucky Charms has arrived!
Before Sam could try thinking of another method, the door barged open. Jumping slightly in place, he curled his hands protectively around the tiny balled-up kid he’d found, and saw Dean sauntering back in.
“Got some grub,” Dean said, walking past Sam and tossing a package of bread on the table, followed by peanut butter and jelly from his jacket pockets. Last, he pulled out some peanut M&Ms from his back pocket and grinned proudly. “Even remembered the chocolate.”
Sam didn’t react to the food, just watching Dean over his shoulder, still sitting on the ground facing the dresser from catching the tiny kid and wondering how he was going to break this one for Dean.
Naturally, this immediately alerted Dean to the fact that something was off in Sam-land, and he narrowed his eyes at Sam.
“What? No grabbing for the M&Ms?” Dean asked suspiciously. “Whatcha doing down there, anyway?” He stepped closer to Sam, his eyes falling on the cupped hands. “What did you find?” he demanded, squatting down next to Sam. “You know what Dad says about keeping pets!” He went to grab for Sam’s wrist.
Oscar, in all the excitement of being swept off the floor, had forgotten about the other human. How he could forget about the second tenant in the room, he didn’t know. He hadn’t even considered him when thinking about running out in the open for that candy. There was a chance that he’d have been caught by the other kid instead.
The older human was loud. Oscar squeezed his eyes shut as he came nearer, and wished he could curl up into an even tinier ball so he might go unnoticed.
It was no use. He was trapped in the younger human’s hands anyway.
He peeked one eye open to chance a look past his arms, and sucked in a gasp. Another hand, bigger than the ones that held him, was fast approaching. It could snatch him up even faster, and this human might grab him too hard.
He yelped, kicking out to push as far as he could into the curve of his current captor’s fingers. More tears burst out of his eyes and his head hurt from all the pressure, but Oscar couldn’t help it. He waved his hands in front of himself weakly, as if they’d be some defense, and then the moment was over and he was curled up again in his ball of fear.
The cry of fear from in Sam’s hands galvanized him into action, and he squirmed away from Dean’s reaching hand. “No!” he cried out, protesting his older brother’s grab. He twisted out of reach, keeping his hands shut tight around the kid. “You’ll hurt him! I promised!”
There was a moment of silence, and Sam looked over his shoulder to see Dean frozen. “Sam,” Dean said slowly, his eyebrows pinching in concern. “What do you have in your hands?”
We were going to keep it a secret as long as possible… That 22-year-old, young and bright-eyed hunter that broke into Jacob’s house and kidnapped him… is the one and only Dean Winchester!
“Was it something I said?”
Undeterred by Jacob’s refusal to respond, Dean crept closer to the edge of the dresser, beginning to size it up to estimate if he could just reach under and grab the kid out. The space under the furniture wasn’t much, and he wasn’t sure how far his arm would reach before getting stuck.
Keeping the light on Jacob and his head sideways against the ground, Dean gave the kid a grin in an attempt to win him over. “C’mon, I just wanna talk to ya!”
Jacob didn’t believe that for a second. He took another step back, feeling crowded in even more as the guy moved closer to the edge. He could only see half of the man’s face, and it was still overwhelming. There was too much confidence in that half-smirk he could see.
It’s time for the sneak peek earned earlier last week for our upcoming debut of Brothers Kept! Starring Stan and his new borrower, A Friend in Need is coming soon!
Under the watchful eye of Dean’s new owner, Dean tried to dodge the girl’s grab out of instinct. The sight of those hands descending sent his pulse skyrocketing.
There was no use in dodging. He stood a very slight 3.82 inches tall, as his records listed, and under 14 ounces. There was no way for him to fight back against even a single wisp of a girl.
The fingers closed in, expertly pinching around his chest to prevent him from running off. The ring finger and pinky curled around his stomach and waist, and he was left with only his legs dangling free, both arms sealed to his sides.
Dean struggled, his face going white as she plucked him up out of the cage and he saw the yawning abyss stretching out under his feet. Probably no more than two feet up in the air, low enough down to have to look up at everyone, but more than ample a height for Dean to be severely injured if her grip slackened. She could even claim it was an accident if she hated him enough.
The box appeared underneath, and those thoughts vanished as Dean was dropped inside, hitting the ground with a small cry of pain he tried to stifle. He leapt to his feet but was too late to try and get out as the darkness over his head sealed him in, blocking out all light except the four slim slits cut into the box for air, one on each side.
Stan somehow managed to turn his grimace into a friendly smile when the attendant stood and handed him the tiny box. He had to remind his stiff arm to relax enough to take it from her.
“If you’ll be needing supplies, you’ll find we have a wide selection of just about everything to take care of the little things. Plenty of nutrients in the food brands we carry, and state-of-the-art–,”
“Actually,” Stan interrupted her again, hoping he looked less green than he felt, “I just remembered, I’ve got frozen goods in the boot, I really should hurry home. But I’ll take care of it soon!"
Flashing her a grin, Stan tucked the box against his middle and headed out of the store before he could be physically ill. He paid no heed to her startled "Take care!” after him.
Artwork and inspiration for the story all from @wolfie180g!
If we take your two guesses we can splice together the title of the next fic in Brothers Unexpected! A Place for Oz (which happens to be Dean’s pocket more often than not XD), continues on the adventure for the smolest kiddo with his irascible giant and his even-more irascible father!
Suddenly all of Oscar’s questions for Dean were far from his mind. The current situation held his focus.
He was in a car.
All his life, creeping through the dark vents and spaces between motel room walls, Oscar had never imagined what it’d be like. He could actually feel the motion, faint vibrations as the car hurtled along far faster than he could fathom. Even the turns didn’t slow down enough for him to keep up. The sounds and the feelings rattled his miniscule body and Oscar was stuck between fascinated and scared.
He kept a corner of his cloth pinched in his fingers, rubbing the worn threads with a thumb. Oscar was very good at staying hidden, and if Dean didn’t know he was there, he might not even notice the tiny weight in his pocket. No one looking at the teen would see more than a fold in the fabric. Oscar took a slow breath in, and then let it all out in a huff. He was safe, and he just needed to remind his nerves of the fact.
After some time curled up in his blanket with little change from the outside of the pocket, he shifted at last. Curiosity crept in and nagged at him. This was the first time he’d really left home, and he was missing it. That thought enabled him to let go of his blanket and push it to the corner of the pocket while he grasped at the flannel weave instead.
(tagging @kajensen07 and @torchmlp since I had to screenshot the guesses instead of answer directly to keep them together)
san – Sam and Nicholas? Even if this isn’t right, I am looking forward to learning more about Jacob’s dad!
You got it!
In Brothers Unexpected, Sam has a lot to get used to. Including Jacob’s father, Nicholas Andris, the person Jacob resembles the most when he grows up, especially in height.
While Sam is but a two-and-a-half inch tall kiddo.
(If anyone’s missed it, there’s a special short story about Jacob and his late father over on deviantart. It happens later along the timeline than where Brothers Unexpected is at thus far. Check it out here and the second part here.)
Nicholas froze in the middle of relaxing into the couch’s worn, comfortable cushions. His heart skipped a beat and he processed what he’d heard, the tiniest little noise that he might not have noticed. Before they found Sam, he definitely wouldn’t have registered the sound.
He glanced around, turning his head to scan the room. He knew Sam hadn’t been on the couch when he came in, so he could at least do away with the frantic worry that he’d nearly crushed the kid. That didn’t write out the possibility that he was under the couch or somewhere near enough that Nicholas’ careless action could have hurt the tiny kid.
“Sam?” he called out cautiously. His deep voice was quiet, but he knew that to Sam it still rumbled overhead. If the kid was hurt or scared, he probably wouldn’t answer.
The new au takes place in a world where borrowers are known and are treated as pets. When Dean was cursed, he was caught and shipped to England and put in a pet store. The lady we see handling him in the snippets isn’t the one who captured him, but simply a person who works there. Stan happens to walk into the pet shop and sees Dean.
AFIN – Both Sam and Dean are cursed. Sam and Dean are captured and shipped over to Europe at some point in their lives. Borrowers are well known in this world and are caught and sold as pets. When Sam and Dean are captured, Dean is separated from Sam in some way (bought by someone, moved to different location?) and Dean is put up for sale in a pet store where Stan comes and finds him
This is it! The background for Brothers Kept!
In Kept, borrowers (my supernatural-style borrowers) were discovered in the ‘50s. Ever since then, they’ve become highly sought after pets for the wealthy and rich (anyone that can afford the high costs of adopting a living, breathing person).
In America, borrowers are a very uncommon sight due to their rarity. American borrowers are even more costly than regular ones. The Winchesters grew up on the road with their father, not paying much mind to the little people. They knew they existed, it was just that borrowers were so rare they didn’t consider them in their day-to-day lives.
Until the curse.
When they tried to find help to seek out John Winchester, they were caught and shipped overseas, processed for sale. Sam, being young and impressionable, didn’t take long to sell, while Dean, angry, betrayed and mouthing off, got stuck in the store for… years. Constantly put down, disciplined for bad behavior, ignored by customers…
Then one day Stan happens by the store and discovers a borrower in a leather jacket and jeans with scratched out messages on the side of his cage that are a cry for help, and can’t turn his back on him.
We’ll have a second preview later on this week since the story name was guessed as well, A Friend in Need.
His gaze shifted again to regard the other cages and the patrons perusing them. The people of both sizes that he saw appeared entirely different than himself and Dean. Most of the borrowers were dressed in bright outfits, practically bouncing at the front of their cages to catch someone’s eye. The humans were all enamored of them, a child further down prodding his fingers against the glass to tease one.
Dean was visibly very different from the rest. His clothes were darker, almost as though they were advertising him as an edgy biker character of some kind. Yet he was clearly unused to the attention Stan was showing him, and was less than comfortable with it.
A cold spike shot through Stan’s insides when he noticed something in the back corner. Tucked behind a hamster water bottle where the average patron would miss it, there were little tick marks scratched into the glass. Stan tilted his head and noticed words put there and scratched through. Words that broke Stan’s heart to read.
Please save me
Kill me
Stan’s brow pinched together as he reached a numb hand to lightly touch a fingertip to the glass on the other side of Dean’s scratches. He wished he could wipe them away, fix all that had made the poor bloke so miserable.
~~~
Dean couldn’t look away from the man.
Green eyes that put Dean’s to shame, a shock of red hair that looked perfectly wild and a pale complexion that nearly matched the borrowers who never saw the sun, the man touched the glass near Dean with a long finger that outsized the borrower.
Captivated by the intense gaze, Dean couldn’t help but lean forward and flatten his hand against the side of the glass to see the sheer difference between them. Compared to Stan’s fingertip, his hand was too small to fill the entire area, the tips of his fingers falling just short. He could make out every crevice and crack, the whorls of a fingerprint clearer than the words Dean had carved into the wall of his cage.
Dean was small. Insignificant. Nothing, a voice whispered in his mind.
A shock ran through Dean and he drew back from the fingertip like the glass had burned him, quickly pulling his sleeve down over his hand and trying to scrub away the scratches like the leather could possibly fix the mess he’d made.
Everything in this story was inspired by @wolfie180g‘s picture of Dean and Cas!
Hey, BFTP isn’t Blast From The Past is it? Also it’s really neat that you guys are doing an AU with a smol Dean and Jacob, and tol Sam 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing these stories!
(Thanks nonnie! This is a ton of fun and we love to share >w>)
That’s the one! Sam’s staying at familiar motel and it’s going to be a Blast from the Past!
Once they get past introductions.
From his angle under the dresser, Jacob could almost see the glaring red numbers on the alarm clock across the room. Whatever hour they broadcast to the room, all he knew was that it was late afternoon. The sun was already setting outside, leaving just an orange glow peeking around the shabby curtains on the window.
Late for humans, perhaps, but for people like him, it was nearing the perfect time to be out and about. Standing at less than three and three-quarter inches tall, Jacob would be lucky to stand taller than someone’s shoe. His caution under the dresser was born of how true and serious that truth was. It would only take one mistake, one moment of inattention, to land him in trouble.
He’d been taught that lesson every day since he woke up in a world too big for him. Only fourteen years old, and he’d had to accept a new life.
His old one was literally out of reach. Furniture towered overhead and people were powerful giants with the power to lock him away for good.
He shifted from one foot to the other, his handmade leather boots pressing into the dusty carpet fibers. Walt, a man his size who had taken him on as a pupil of sorts, had made the boots for him, along with the satchel that rested against his side and comforted him with its presence. Everything he owned was in there, and he drummed his fingers silently against the top flap. Hopefully he would come away from this room with a little extra.
It wasn’t his greatest plan, coming out to check out the room by himself. An inner voice that sounded a lot like Walt scolded him for it. He reassured it that he wouldn’t take long. Then he could resume looking for wherever Dean had already wandered in his own search for supplies. He was always better at finding exactly what he needed.
Dean was like Jacob. Small, and trapped in the harsh living they had to make for themselves in the walls of the Trails West. He’d been shrunk down for ten years by the time Jacob arrived. It had hardened him in ways Jacob doubted he’d ever fully understand. Whenever Walt finished with a lecture, it seemed like Dean was there with another one just to remind him.
Stuck here forever. Gotta take care of yourself. No one out there will.
He took a slow breath and eyed the table in the room. The lamp on the dresser directly above him provided some extra light for the cluttered surface. Luckily, no one sat in the rickety chair next to it.
He wasn’t out of the woods. There was a human in the room, the only reason Jacob hadn’t come any farther out than the dresser. The man was milling by the bed and rummaging through his duffel bag. Jacob wasn’t sure, but the guy had to be nearly as tall as his dad had been, so many years ago. His heart did a flip as he leaned out just enough to assess the man’s height before ducking back out of sight.
Definitely a big guy. Easily over six feet tall, one of the tallest people he’d seen since shrinking down. Jacob was supposed to grow that tall one day. That promise was long gone by now. Now he’d have to hope for four inches of height.
He heaved a slow breath. The duffel bag on the bed was a sign of a road tripper. Maybe someone on his way to a new job, or visiting friends far away. Whatever he was there for, the motel was only serving to keep him from nodding off on the long drive.
These kinds of folks tended to have snacks, so he’d learned. Quick and easily accessible food that, if they could take off with some, would be great for them.
Getting ahead of himself, Jacob wondered what the guy might have hidden away in that bag. It had been a while since he’d had trail mix.
Brothers Apart 