Don’t let anyone ever own you, came in Dean’s voice. Sam might not be able to keep himself from being taken away, but he could fight back with everything he had.
“I should have known,” Sam said, his voice dripping with venom. “You think you’re better than me because you’re taller.” He struggled to draw in a breath. Something in him refused to quit, no matter how foolish it was to backtalk a human. The memory of cages was trying to wash rational thought away, and if that happened Sam would be curled into a ball, no more useful than a mouse pup. Just like the last time he was trapped, by Sherlock.
But this time there was no John to let him out. No Dean to help him fight back. Just Sam, more alone than he’d been in years.
I had to double check because I was certain I put Please on the list, but then it doesn’t really matter. I got an idea anyway.
AU: None of the current ones
A nightmare. This was a nightmare.
The sound of the worn plastic ice bucket slamming to the floor echoed in Oscar’s ears, and his eyes were wide with terror. A bruise was already forming on his forehead from slamming into a wall that hadn’t been there seconds before.
He was trapped. A human had spotted him while he ran desperately for cover in the motel room. They’d grabbed the ice bucket without a second thought, and in a few steps that covered distances Oscar would have to sprint for several seconds, stomped over to him.
The ground was still shaking. No, he realized, that’s just my knees.
Tears welled up in his eyes and raced down his cheeks. Oscar stood in carpet fibers that reached past his ankles, with almost no light leaking under the rim of the bucket. A circle of dim light ringed him in, an outline for how utterly trapped he was.
He hadn’t made it. After years of getting by on his own, keeping out of sight and collecting what he needed to survive, he hadn’t made it. It only took one failure to ruin everything, and the one failure had finally arrived.
Now, he was at the mercy of a human.
Light burst in from the opposite side of the container as it suddenly tilted upwards. Oscar whirled around, his cloth bag swinging with him and slamming into his side, heavy with the spoils he’d taken from the room. A breath caught in his throat and his shoulders hitched up with a new wave of adrenaline crashing through him like stormy waves on a rocky shore.
A hand with fingers bigger than his body slipped under the opening, blocking his escape route and inching towards him. Oscar could only watch, knees still shaking, as it came closer.
The first fingertip brushed against his chest and Oscar froze. Not an instant later, the hand lurched forward and that finger pressed into one side while a giant thumb closed in on the other, pinching around him and forcing the breath from his tiny, frail lungs. Oscar grimaced with pain.
More light washed over him now that he was secure in a pinch grip. The bucket was set aside and Oscar, stuck hopelessly in the casual strength of a single hand, shot into the air at the human’s whim. Air whipped at his messy brown hair and he closed his eyes, curling into himself as much as he could.
When he came to a stop, Oscar had his hands over his face. The human hummed thoughtfully, a deep, loud voice rumbling through his entire being. It was too much, too fast, too scary. Oscar sobbed and more tears came.
“Quit that,” the human ordered gruffly. Before Oscar could parse the words enough to understand that the order was for him, another pinch grip found him. Fingertips bigger than his head pinched roughly around one of his arms and tugged it away from his face.
He yelped in pain, and his other hand automatically braced against the pinch grip to try to free his arm. It was already bruising, he could tell. The human was too strong.
The human hummed again while Oscar sobbed, and then let go at last. Oscar held his hurt arm close to his chest, resisting the urge to cover his face again. Doing it once had gotten him hurt. He didn’t want to risk even worse consequences.
He dangled in the air like that for several seconds while the human looked him over, a cold and appraising look in those eyes. One fingertip nudged at one of his legs, propping it up to stare in disapproval at the cloth wraps he used for shoes. Then, it lifted up and mussed his mousey brown hair. Oscar squeaked in pain as it strained his neck.
“You’ll take some cleaning up,” the human noted, lifting Oscar higher. Oscar squealed with vertigo, finding himself now looking down at a huge human face, one that frowned at him like he was an interesting stone found on the ground.
Suddenly, a smirk appeared on the human’s lips. Oscar trembled at the sight of it and more tears coated his cheeks. He had never been seen by a human before, and now he understood why the idea scared him so much.
He was nothing to this man. He was just an object to pick up and observe, a toy. Nothing more.
Please …
A startled cry choked in his throat when the hand pinched around him dropped suddenly. Freefall wormed into his gut for a heartstopping second, and Oscar clung to the fingers around him despite the pain they caused in his ribs. His eyes shut tight for the brief moment.
Then it was over. The hand stopped moving, and then the grip around him relented.
Oscar landed in a heap on something hard and cold. The air escaped his lungs and he rolled over as motion assaulted him again. He looked upwards at a circular view of the ceiling, partially blocked by a human face peering in at him. The smell of cheap plastic surrounded him and he hiccuped.
He was in the ice bucket. Smooth sides that would resist any attempt to scramble up, the edge was over his head. With the human looking right at him, he wouldn’t have a chance to use his climbing thread to escape.
Not that it mattered. Once the human was finished walking, the bucket was dropped harshly onto what Oscar had to assume was the table. He jolted and then scrambled back, pressing against the wall of the container.
He didn’t know what the man had planned for him. It took him a second or two to find his voice.
“Please,” he managed to squeak out. Fear and despair coiled together in his tone, a hopeful appeal to the giant’s better nature.
All he got was another smirk. “Oh, you’ll be one of Mina’s favorites, I guarantee it,” he said, the cryptic words soaring over Oscar’s head.
Then, another circle loomed into view, and Oscar recognized the lid of the ice bucket just before it slammed into place overhead, echoing loudly in his ears and shutting him into total darkness.
He opened up a pocket on his shirt. Flipping his grip so he dangled the little guy by his trapped legs over the cloth enclosure, he gave him one last dismissive statement.
“I’ll deal with you later.”
He dropped Sam into his pocket and fastened it shut.
True! Dean can be heavy-handed when either the situation calls for it or when he’s hot-headed and raring for a fight.
The difference here is if he does roughhouse with Sam, he could do permanent damage to his little brother, and put an end to what trust they’ve managed to scrape together. That said, I highly doubt Dean will ever win a fight in this method. The relationship between them is different in my AU than what’s on the Supernatural TV show.
On the other hand, Dean has absolutely no problem using his size against his enemies. Even Bowman, at first, had to deal with a harsher Dean than Sam anytime.
Future snippet to illustrate this:
“It wasn’t an offer,” Dean said simply. The defiant stance had no effect on his determination. “And if you don’t, you’ll just have to deal with the consequences. Simple as that.”
With a painful slowness, he curled the fingers of his hand inwards, boxing the man in. The little guy’s eyes widened and he tried to push himself away from the advancing wall. But his hands were small against even Dean’s fingertips, unable to hold them back.
Dean didn’t stop there. In short order, there was no sign that he had another human in his hand. All that was visible was Dean’s fist and the ring on his finger. The guy was completely clenched inside.
“Fuck! Let me out! ” the man bellowed, seething with the knowledge that a lot of his volume was lost to the prison encased around him. He writhed as much as he could in the extremely tight space, which didn’t say much. His arms were pinned at awkward angles to his chest and his legs could hardly move at all. Dean’s ring dug into his side mercilessly every time he shifted.
Without warning, Dean flipped his hand upside down so all that was holding the guy from dashing to the ground was Dean’s curled fingers. “This is a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ ” Dean said with a grin. His fingers loosened up a little so that the guy would be able to see the ground down below through the cracks.
With the constant struggles, Dean waited patiently until one of the man’s small legs happened into the space between his index finger and thumb. Seizing the moment, his finger pinned the leg against his thumb…
He will indeed! During the Brothers Adopted series, Dean and Jacob will have a run-in, and Sam isn’t around to straighten things out.
“Hey.” Leaning forward, Dean tapped against the glass vase a few times to get the guy’s attention again. “I already know you can talk so this silent treatment crap ain’t gonna do you any good.” Again, he felt ridiculously oversized seeing his finger next to someone so small. A casual tap like that against the kid might end up knocking him over. Hell, a stiff breeze might knock him over.
For a moment, all of Jacob’s fear vanished from his face, replaced by confusion. He frowned. The action hadn’t had any effect on his desire to speak to the human holding him captive. The scrutiny and the noise with the human that close had his nerves back in place in no time, but not without Jacob giving the human a look that said Really? He squared his shoulders, took a step forward, and drew a fist back. He punched the glass as hard as he could, defiance and frustration in the action. See how well this works? his expression seemed to say.
Dean was briefly caught off guard by the punch. It showed a spark of defiance he hadn’t expected, to say the least. A small bit of his former playful demeanor rose up in him and he found himself actually grinning for a moment. The angry facade dropped away, letting the Dean he used to be showed through in that moment.
“Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be?” Dean asked gamely. He tapped right back at the little guy, finger rapping lightly directly opposite where the punch had landed.
Jacob flinched in surprise, the sound of another tap on the glass startling him almost as much as the sudden shift in the giant face in front of him. A smile, a genuine one, lit up the human’s expression and a playful tone had leaked into his deep voice.
Jacob glanced side to side, waiting for someone to walk around the corner somewhere and end the joke here. His fist was still held up at the ready, but he glanced at it before looking at the glass, unsure if he should even try to punch again.
Brothers Apart 