( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest:http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
The night proceeded as normally as it could for Sam–at least for a time. Dean took a break from glancing through the Internet for their next potential case when he answered the knock at the door to receive the Chinese food he ordered.
Try as Sam might to put the girl in the walls out of his thoughts, he couldn’t. He had noticed the particular way she stood, blocking his path with everything she had. There was something she didn’t want him to see, and it was easy enough to guess that she was protecting others of her kind–a difficult thing to do without alerting Sam of their existence in the process.
Instead of watching TV from the table he and his brother were eating dinner at, Sam stared absently at the chunk of spring roll he took from the styrofoam box Dean was shoveling noodles from. Dean’s hair was still dark and damp from the shower, and he hadn’t bothered asking if Sam had found anything interesting when he emerged from behind the nightstand earlier. Probably knew Sam would tell him if anything out of the ordinary happened.
“Seem a little quiet tonight, Sammy,” Dean commented, pulling Sam’s wandering mind away from the paths behind the drywall. “Still thinkin’ about the hunt?”
Sam blinked in confusion before he caught up with Dean’s question. He gave his brother a mildly sheepish look and nodded. “Yeah. I guess I’m not as used to hunting yet as I thought. But I’m fine. Nothing’s going to top the crazy of people being turned into gold.”
Dean snorted and finished his bite. “I dunno, things can get pretty wild out there.” He turned his head to smirk at Sam, but his brow furrowed suddenly. He set the plastic fork in the styrofoam box, bracing a hand on the edge of the table as he leaned closer to the surface.
Sam couldn’t help but go rigid at the approach of his brother’s enormous face. Instincts told him to get to his feet and back away, but he swiftly reminded himself that he didn’t need those instincts at the moment.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” Dean asked before Sam could inquire as to why his personal space was being invaded.
Bringing his fingertips under his eye, Sam clenched his jaw in surprise at how sensitive the skin was when he pressed on it. It had to be noticeable for Dean to catch something so comparatively small, but then again, he has the sharp eyes of the hunter. There was little he missed.
Seeing the fierce concern lining Dean’s face, Sam felt even less sure about revealing the girl’s presence, and especially the fact that she had attacked him. Even in the event that she hadn’t punched Sam, he felt guilt stir within him at the thought of alerting Dean of her existence when she was so visibly frightened of humans.
“I, uh, yeah, I ran into a piece of wood sticking out,” Sam said hurriedly, tripping over his words and turning away from Dean, as if hiding his black eye from view would make his brother forget about it and drop the subject. When he continued to feel the tingle on his neck from Dean’s stare, Sam added, “In the walls, you know? I didn’t see one of the lower beams on the passage.”
Glancing up briefly, Sam knew that Dean wouldn’t buy it for a second.
“That’s great, but what really happened?” Dean asked, a flat tone mingling with the worry.
Sam let out a slow breath and didn’t answer right away. He knew in his heart that Dean could be trusted, but that didn’t make it any easier to betray someone Sam’s own size. If the girl knew what he was doing, she would accuse him of sentencing her to death as payback for a black eye.
“There was… someone in the walls,” Sam admitted.
Dean’s frown deepened as he put two and two together. “You’re telling me they did that to you?”
“I scared her,” Sam insisted, doing his best to shift the blame away from her. “I saw her, and she ran away. I caught up and grabbed her shoulder.”
“So she gave you a black eye for that?”
Sam shrugged, thinking about the metal needle the girl had whipped out. He got out of the situation far more unscathed than the worst case scenario. His stomach twisted at the thought of having to get his own knife out and fight her. He had no doubt he would come out victorious, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
“It’s… It’s because she saw you.” Sam looked down from the surprised raise of Dean’s eyebrows. “She saw you in here with me and thought she was acting in self-defense when I ran after her. Probably thought I was trying to get her captured by you.”
The massive chair creaked as Dean leaned back into it with a heavy sigh that rustled Sam’s hair. “Sorry ‘bout that, then, Sammy.” Something of a rueful smile quirked on his lips, far more welcome to Sam than the deep frown he wore at the idea of someone attacking his little brother. “Guess it’ll be hard for you to make friends with me around.”
Sam allowed himself to relax a little. He had already known that what he told the girl was true: Dean wouldn’t hurt someone their size. Still, it was reassuring to have that promise proven by Dean himself.
“Neither of us knew she was watching,” Sam said, attempting to hide his disappointment that his chances of having a peaceful interaction with anyone in those specific walls was impossible at that point. “There’s bound to be others out there somewhere. I’ll come across more sooner or later.”
“Right,” Dean said encouragingly, but Sam could see the guilt brewing in those big green eyes. “That bruise doesn’t look so pretty, though. Lemme see if we can make figure out how to get some ice on that.”
Tag: bittykimmy
Nowhere Else to Turn (Part 2/8)
( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest: http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
Heart still pounding, Ziana navigated the short distance to her home. If Sam had come any deeper down the path, he might have found it. She wanted to kick herself for not heading in the opposite direction when she retreated upon being spotted. When he caught up to her, she thought for sure it was all over–all because of a stupid mistake. All because she had to go check if the human and his small companion would be checking out of the motel any time soon and put her mind at ease.
Falling to a crouch, she scooted off the edge of the wooden path to fall into the ‘foyer’ of her home. She removed her satchel and needle, blinking in the pale light that washed the low-ceilinged room beneath the floorboards. It was a modest place separated into three main sections: a general area for eating and food storage, and two bedrooms.
“You were talking to someone,” a voice rasped from the corner when Ziana walked into the far left bedroom. Shay sat up halfway in bed, propped on her elbows. Her arms arms shook, barely able to hold her torso up.
“Lay back down,” Ziana said with all the authority of a parent, though her friend was only a year younger than her. “It was nobody.”
The blonde flopped back down with a droll sigh, pushing in both sides of her pillow to fluff it up. “Well then, ‘Nobody’ has a deeper voice than yours. C’mon, who was it? New neighbors?”
“Just some guy.”
Ziana refused to look at her, feeling a stab of guilt at the tone of hopefulness in Shay’s voice. She set her satchel down on the lopsided table across from the bed and rummaged through it. Usually she would go straight to the pantries to store most of it, but Shay needed food now. As terrified as Ziana was to see a human shaking the floor in the next motel room over, that hadn’t stopped her from checking out the other rooms to scrounge up some food.
Still, she had messed up by letting Sam spot her. If she hadn’t known that he was hanging around with that human, she might have led him straight to Shay upon meeting him. After all, it would have never crossed her mind that someone their size was chummy with a giant.
What she wished at the moment, though, was that Shay had been sleeping like she was supposed to. Then she wouldn’t have heard Sam.
“Some guy?” Shay echoed, a faint smile in her voice. “What, did you try to flirt him into finding us some meds?”
Ziana gave a tight chuckle. “No. Just some guy. Just passing through.”
“Liar,” Shay insisted. “What’d he look like?”
“Oh, dreamy. Tall, brown hair, hazel eyes, and out of his damn mind.”
There was a pause, and even with her back turned, Ziana knew Shay’s smile fell. “Hey. Ziana, what’s going on?”
Ziana slammed the wrapped granola crumbs down on the makeshift table so hard that she was surprised it didn’t collapse. “He’s with a human,” she said, baring her teeth. “I saw them. They were talking. The human was holding him, carrying him around. The guy says his name’s Sam. He came to check if anyone was here, and now he knows.”
When the explanation was met with silence, Ziana sighed and made herself turn around. If Shay’s cheeks weren’t so flushed with fever, she would have been paler than pale.
“Then we need to get out of here,” Shay croaked, adjusting herself to sit up and put her legs over the side of the bed.
“No, no, no, you’re too sick.” Ziana rushed over to push her shoulders back down and yank the blanket back up. “Look, I gave the guy a black eye that I’m sure he’ll cherish for the next week or so, and I called him out on what he was trying to do. He left. I don’t think he’ll be bothering us anymore.” She tried to sound sure of herself, but Shay didn’t buy it.
“You punched a guy and he went back to his gigantic human friend? Oh yeah, nothing can go wrong there.” Nonetheless, Shay didn’t try to get up again. Her breaths came shorter, rife with agitation. “What did he say when you told him you knew?”
Ziana snorted a humorless laugh and stepped back to grab a sticky piece of granola for Shay–the biggest one she could get her hands on. “He tried to tell me that the human doesn’t want to hurt us, obviously. Then he tried to feed me some bullshit story that the human is his brother. I dunno, I think he was trying to throw me off. He probably would have offered to introduce me to the guy if I didn’t have my needle out.”
She helped Shay sit up before passing her the food so she wouldn’t choke on her meal. Exiting the room briefly, she returned from the kitchen with a half empty bottle cap of water, setting it carefully on Shay’s lap while she ate. Ziana pulled up a stool constructed from a block of wood next to the bed and sat down.
Munching pensively on her granola, Shay frowned at the thin blanket. “What if he’s telling the truth, though? I mean, the human is letting him walk around in the walls without worrying that he’ll run off. Doesn’t sound like something a human would do. Maybe he’s… different.”
She received a laugh in response. “This fever’s getting to you,” Ziana dismissed, giving Shay a playful tap on the side of her head.
“I’m serious,” Shay insisted, waving her off. “What if… I dunno, what if you asked Sam if his human could give us some medicine? Maybe we wouldn’t even have to meet the human! I mean, if he’s as nice as Sam says he is, wouldn’t he help?”
Ziana went quiet. She hadn’t even thought about that, seeing as she hadn’t considered for even a moment that Sam told the truth. Shaking her head, she brushed off the idea of that being possible. “So what if the human lets Sam walk around? The guy’s probably trained up so well that the human doesn’t have to worry about his pet running off. We’ve gotten through fevers before, Shay. You’re going to be fine without some human’s help. Got it?”
Shay licked her dry lips and gave Ziana a long, uncertain look that sent another wave a guilt through Ziana. What, is she not worth the risk? a voice taunted at the back of Ziana’s mind. You’ll let her suffer because you won’t take a chance? Selfish, selfish, selfish.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Shay murmured finally. “He’d probably just trap us.”
Blinking hard, Ziana nodded firmly.
After offering Ziana the rest of her food, Shay slid back down in the sheets and curled up on her side. Once her breaths evened out to a peaceful rhythm, Ziana pressed a hand to her cheek, dismayed to find Shay was burning up worse than ever. The bandaged gash on her arm was most certainly infected, and their best option for obtaining medicine was unthinkable.
Sighing, she ran her hand through Shay’s blond hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“You’re going to be fine,” Ziana whispered. “We don’t need them.”
Nowhere Else to Turn (Part 1/8)
( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest: http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
The rusty pipes echoed with the sound of water rushing through so loudly that it felt like the water system was on its way to falling apart. Sam had long since grown used to the sound after spending the majority of his life living within the walls of a motel. To a human, the sound of water flowing through the pipes was hardly noteworthy.
A sound at the front door would have concerned Sam far more, though thankfully no sound came. Dean hadn’t ordered any food that night, so there was no reason to anticipate any sort of knock yet. He announced that he would order Chinese after his shower.
Most of Sam’s attention was invested in waiting for the adrenaline rush of the latest case to wear off.
He and his brother had arrived the night before and gotten straight to work. Neither of them had slept since checking in, and Sam still felt too wired to even think about laying down. The case was over. A regular salt and burn to Dean, but it was anything but regular to Sam.
Because they had been swept up into the whirlwind of the case, Sam hadn’t taken the opportunity to inspect the walls yet. It had become routine for him since joining his brother on the road. At first, Sam had been optimistic that he would meet more people his size living within the walls of the motels he and his brother stayed in. But Sam had yet to find anyone since leaving the Trails West behind.
And that was the last place he wanted to think about.
Swallowing the mournful thoughts that threatened to surface, he continued on his path along the base of the wall. His best bet was to check out the vents. Finding an opening within that led into paths within the walls would provide evidence for small people claiming residence in the motel.
He prepared himself for disappointment. He and Dean would be off in the morning anyway. There would always be more motels to inspect.
Thumbing his coiled climbing rope, Sam leaned in to peek through the slat of the vent near the ground. The air conditioning rumbled, mingling with the noise of the rushing pipes. He narrowed his eyes at the darkness, but before he could begin to climb in for a closer look, something stirred in the corner of his vision.
Sam lurched away from the vent to look farther down the wall, but in a swish of brown hair and a shifting section of drywall, the movement fled from view.
“Hey, wait!” Sam called, starting a few steps toward the back of the nightstand before he slowed to a stop, dumbfounded.
No way. After a month of examining the inner walls of their motel rooms, he finally came across someone his own size. He would have chalked it up to an animal scurrying out of the room, but most mice didn’t have light skin and a head of brown hair.
The pipes squeaked as the water shut off and snapped Sam back to attention. Instead of letting his thoughts race, he sprinted for the nightstand, determined to catch up with the person. He wasn’t sure what spooked them into running off, but he had a guilty suspicion in his gut. Maybe it wasn’t the first time the person had peeked into the room. If that was the case, they might have seen something that made trusting Sam out of the question.
Sure enough, he found the loose, crumbling section of drywall that the person disappeared behind. It would have been almost impossible for a human to spot it on their own, especially if they didn’t know what they were looking for. Sam liked to think he would have spotted it himself if given the chance to get that far in his exploration of the room.
Prying away the opening, he slipped inside and listened. Sure enough, the sound of pattering footsteps came from the side, retreating further with each passing second. After years of living in walls similar to these, it didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust to the dismal light. He took off at a sprint, careful not to trip over the small sections of woodwork jutting up along the path.
“Wait up! It’s okay!”
The footsteps paused for a brief moment, but Sam didn’t slow down. He turned a corner and spotted her. One wide eye glanced over her shoulder before she bolted off again. She was shorter than him with shorter strides, so he was able to close the distance in a matter of seconds.
He reached out and took her shoulder gently, not that his gentleness was given any appreciation. There were a number of things he was prepared for her to do: scream, squirm away, run faster, or freeze up.
What he didn’t expect was for her to whirl around and punch him squarely in the face.
“Back off!” she hissed as he did just that, staggering back in shock with a hand instinctively jumping up to guard his throbbing right eye.
The needle she whipped out from her belt made him take another step back.
The girl shuffled back a couple of steps too, holding her weapon at the ready and wearing an expression that said she wouldn’t hesitate to run him through if he gave her a reason. Behind the hard look in her eyes, Sam saw something familiar: fear. Her breaths rattled out with agitation, shoulders tense with preparation for anything. She couldn’t be more than in her late teens, but he could tell there wasn’t a drop of innocence left in her. No willingness to risk giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Careful not to make any sudden movements, Sam held his hands palms-out to show peace. He could have wielded his own knife in retaliation in case she attacked unprovoked, but she hadn’t lashed out until he touched her. She acted in what she thought was self-defense.
“I’m sorry for startling you,” he said calmly. “I was just checking to see if anyone lived around here.”
“Yeah, I do, and it’s private property. Now leave me alone. A bloody nose goes very well with a black eye.”
He hesitated, lips parted in surprise at her hostility. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen another one of us,” he said, shoulders slumping. “Can we just talk? My name’s Sam–”
“Cut the crap, Sam. I know you’re with that human out there! I saw you.” The girl edged back tensely, as if he would charge at her just for telling him what she had seen.
Suspicions confirmed, Sam sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “You saw that? Well… Then you saw he wasn’t hurt me, didn’t you? His name’s Dean. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone like us. He treats us the same as he would treat other humans.”
The girl laughed. “Right, right. Why don’t you go scamper on back to him and leave me alone? I’m not interested in whatever’s going on with you. I’m sorry that you’re delusional, but that’s no reason for me to put myself in danger.”
“You’re not in danger,” Sam insisted. He paused and gave her a long look, wondering if telling her the truth would make her even less inclined to trust him. Maybe if she knew that Dean wasn’t some random human… “He’s my brother. He would never hurt me.” Spotting the immediate confusion twist on her face, he didn’t bother letting her ask. “I was a human once too,” he explained, “but I was cursed by a witch when I was a kid. I’ve been this size ever since.”
She looked him up and down. “Uh-huh,” she said slowly.
A small smirk touched his lips despite himself. “You don’t believe me.”
“Well, Sam. The way I see it, you’re either lying and you can fuck off, or you’re telling the truth and you can definitely fuck off.” The admission of his origin made her even more wary, Sam noticed with a sinking heart. “Because my first thought when I woke up today wasn’t, ‘Hmm, you know what would go great with all my problems? Witches and curses. Let’s get those in the mix.’”
“What kind of problems?” Part of Sam knew that attempting to earn her trust was a lost cause, but he had to try. “My brother and I are staying one more night. Maybe we can help you.”
She raised her needle, not even a touch of leniency in her eyes. “You’ll stay away from here if you know what’s good for you. So, go. Now.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. One more look at her face, and he knew he wasn’t getting anywhere with her. There was nothing wrong with her reaction, he knew that. If he was in the same position, he wouldn’t trust anyone who said there was a human who could be trusted with someone his size. Sam wasn’t about to force this girl into doing anything she didn’t want to, including remain in his presence.
Nodding respectfully, he eased back. “We won’t bother you,” he promised, not daring to give his back to her. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Once he turned the corner, he listened closely to make sure she wouldn’t run to get the jump on him. After a few long moments, her footsteps hurried off in the opposite direction. He bit back a sigh, hoping he hadn’t frightened an innocent person into putting herself in danger by taking her things and moving out.
I do want to bring them in, but the story hasn’t gone far enough, and I need to find a good story to have them in for.
It would be fun for the boys to get to the roadhouse and Jo clocks Dean with the butt of her shotgun, then Ellen catches Sam as he topples off the shoulder from the blow. Shocked faces all around.
“You boys have some explainin’ to do.”
There are plans in the works for other canon supernatural characters as well…
Brothers Apart 