Keeping himself down below the level of the collar, Sam carefully put one foot in front of the other. The neckline of the shirt John was wearing under the jacket gave him a place to plant his boots, and all he had to do was not slip down the edge of the cliff John’s back became. Sam’s pulse quickened. Just like at home, he encouraged himself, calling to mind all the daredevil stunts he’d pulled on Dean over and over again.
After he reached the halfway point, Sam pushed himself off harder, clambering at last to John’s other shoulder.
That’s gotta tickle.
John did not expect
But the good doctor is not squirming.
Bonus excerpt:
John blinked when he felt Sam’s weight shift, what little he could make out of it. He seemed to be shuffling further back, and for a moment John worried that he was moving too fast or jostling the little fellow.
Sam’s intention became clear, however, as he moved across the back of his neck.
John’s shoulders tensed and tiny hairs stood on end as the younger Winchester’s tiny body brushed against them. Only when Sam made it safely to the other side did John remember to breathe. He doubted he would ever truly be used to any of this. Not like they teach you how to handle interacting with tiny people…
Dean held Sam close to him, looking up at the woman with dried tears clinging to his eyelashes. Twenty-four hours. Just twenty-four hours since they’d woken up like this, and there was a small light in the dark.
He couldn’t quite remember everything. It was all a blur before waking up in the hot, humid darkness. A woman, breaking into their room and attacking them. Dean could do nothing to keep her from his little brother. She’d pinned him effortlessly to the wall, without once touching him, forcing him to watch his little brother vanish into a white light.
And then doing the same for him, the world going black as the white light surrounded him.
Now, they’d escaped from her, but nothing was the way they remembered.
Motel rooms were larger than sweeping cathedrals. A football stadium could fit on the two beds. People were giants, the remote for the TV was unmovable, and Dean was scared.
Nothing, not his dad’s training, not Bobby’s stories, nothing, could have prepared him for this.
The woman stared down at him, her eyes widening in slight surprise. Dean could see so much detail in her face, he knew the moment her pupils dilated. He could smell the sickly-sweet scent of wine on her breath when her mouth parted.
That was all the warning they got.
Her hand swept out, long fingers curling around the two tiny children. Sam cried out in surprise as Dean did his best to block her attack, but standing under four inches tall meant there was no way for him to stop her.
A fist closed harshly around them, and Sam’s cries went from surprised to pained, and then stopped.
Dean sucked in a breath as the motel room nightstand vanished under their feet, the height forgotten in the wake of worry for his brother.
What did she do to Sammy?
“Please,” Dean begged. “We just need help…”
She lifted them up, her hand opening when held in front of her eyes. There was no warmth in those eyes as she scanned every one of the brothers’ very few inches.
“Wonderful…” she breathed, that sickly smell hitting Dean in a wave. He almost retched.
Containing his reaction, Dean glared at the woman as he cradled his brother in his arms. “What did you do?” he shouted angrily, Sam’s arm limp and hanging from the socket in an unnatural position.
“Sweetie,” she said in a condescending voice, “you’re just a toy. A possession. You should remember that the next time you talk back.”
She turned from the nightstand, the long fingers curling around the two boys as she rifled through the pockets of a jacket and withdrew a phone. A red-painted fingernail winked in the light at them as it tapped out a message.
While Sam climbed his way back up Jacob’s arm, Dean paused and pulled Melanie into one last hug. He held her against his chest. “If we ever pass by this way, maybe I’ll have Jacob drop me off in the area,” he said with a wink. “I can check up and make sure you didn’t get into any trouble.”
Melanie’s smile was shy again and there was some pink in her cheeks. “I’d like that,” she told him, her fingers curling slowly around the lapel of his leather jacket. She had to push herself up on her tiptoes to claim one more kiss before he had to leave.
The small pair on the floor drew out their last kiss, enjoying one final embrace. Melanie’s slight form fit into Dean’s arms perfectly, filling in the emptiness in his center that had been there for a decade. He pulled away from her slightly so he could drink in her beauty one last time, brushing a thumb that was callused from years of climbing over her bottom lip.
“See you around, sweetheart,” he said softly as he straightened. It put him out of easy reach for her, his own natural height showing up for one of the first times in years.
The tip of Dean’s tongue stuck out between his teeth as he concentrated all of his efforts down on the tiny ball of ground beef he was forming into the world’s smallest and most perfect hamburger patty.
It was the first opportunity he’d been able to get into the kitchen on his own, Bobby out to pick up more supplies for his crowded household, not used to entertaining guests at all, and certainly not sure what to do when one of those guests was smaller than a finger.
Sam was off exploring, and Dean hoped he stayed gone until he figured this thing out.
Tiny beef patties were harder than they looked.
His first attempt was too large. When Dean finished frying it, he’d realized that it was the size of Sam’s torso. No good. The entire point of this was making food Sam could eat like Bobby and Dean, not Sam-sized food. Dean had eaten it himself as he started his next attempt.
The next one had turned out smaller, but ended up looking like a tiny meatball. It wouldn’t sit on a bun. Another snack for Dean.
Now, he finally finished pressing the patty into shape and smirked. Perfect.
Dropping it onto one of Bobby’s smallest frying pans with the heat set on low, Dean went to turn his attention to the bun and fixings only to find Sam standing on the counter, curiously looking over the remains of Dean’s former attempts.
“Having some trouble?” Sam asked, his face open and innocent.
Caught in the act, Dean forced himself to unfreeze. Sam couldn’t see into the pan from where he was standing. There was still hope of it remaining a secret until it was ready. He reached for the fridge, leaning over to look inside while he talked. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you to not sneak up on a hunter?”
Sam took a few steps towards Dean, and away from the stovetop. “That same person once said he was always alert,” Sam joked, his grin widening. “So I guess this means you could work on those instincts of yours.”
Dean rolled his eyes, but there was no hiding the amusement in them. “And I know just the pint-size hunter who’s up to the challenge,” he snarked back.
“Do you?” Sam pretended like he had no idea what they were talking about. “You’ll have to introduce us. I could use some support the next time we go head to head.”
Dean snorted, sitting at the kitchen table with everything he needed. Tomato, onion, lettuce to shred and ketchup. He started to slice everything down to the size needed for Sam’s hamburger. The cherry tomato was perfect as soon as he had a slice, and he wondered why he hadn’t used that to judge how much ground meat for Sam’s burger.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked as Dean reached over to the pan, his arm long enough to reach the pan from his seat at the table and flipping over the mini patty to keep it from burning.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Dean said, trying to buy himself time and blinking away the fumes of the onion. There wasn’t much hope of hiding it from Sam much longer, but all he needed was a few more seconds.
The last part was the bun, and Dean only had the buns he and Bobby ate from. He flattened one, cutting it down to the same circular dimensions of the tomato. That was it, and now it was time to assemble.
With the tiny patty cooked, Dean placed that first on the bun, followed by the onion, tomato, shreds of lettuce and the smallest drop of ketchup before holding it out for Sam. “Hungry?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. The hamburger was small enough for Sam to hold between two hands, and actually take a bite of normally instead of picking it apart.
Sam looked dumbfounded, and a grin crept onto his face as he reached out for it. His tiny hands took the mini-burger from Dean, folding around the flattened bun. Then he smirked and looked up at Dean.
“What, no cheese?”
Dean froze again, thinking he’d done it wrong before spotting the smirk. Sam was kidding around with him. He flicked his fingers in Sam’s direction. “Special orders not accepted,” he said primly.
Sam took a bite, closing his eyes at the flavors, all together at once instead of separate like normal. “Thanks, Dean.”
The old house creaked and groaned, constantly settling as the wind outside tested its strength. Jacob crept through the main hall, his boots muffled by a dusty rug that had been traversed many times over the years. The house truly was old, so much so that its wiring was shaky at best, and anything electronic didn’t fit in with the decor.
Jacob kept his flashlight trained on the ground as he walked, and his eyes flickered from side to side. He normally had two small companions on either shoulder, giving him input on where he should go.
They’d led him to this house, this old old place, and that was as far as he’d gotten with their guidance. Old floorboards and walls meant lots of passages within the woodwork of the home to explore. As the only ones that could fit in there, Sam and Dean were the best choice. Sam was only four inches tall, and Dean was a little smaller, but that had yet to slow them down.
Sam and Dean Winchester were hunters, and it ran in the family. After so long thinking their lives had crashed into a dead end in a little motel in Kansas, they were back on the job with a determination to rival anyone. While helping them look for their dad, a hunter who had dropped of the map a couple years back, Jacob was learning the trade as well.
They would scope out the inside of the walls and see if they could find any evidence of what might be causing the strange activity reported from that house. Jacob, being much taller and bulkier, would venture the halls and rooms, scoping out what he could.
Despite knowing how capable they were and how fiercely the brothers defended their independence, Jacob couldn’t help but worry about them in the back of his mind. This was an entirely new place. He didn’t even know the normal dangers they might face in the walls, and this house would probably have new ones. Old, unstable framework would shift and crush them, or a resident rat, used to having the place to itself, could sneak up on them.
Jacob had to remind himself often of how long they’d been living at their size. They were cursed as kids, and he’d only known them for a month or so at the most. Of their group, he was the least experienced with hunting.
The thoughts quieted as he wandered into what looked like a living room. He needed to focus. They were there to find signs of a vengeful spirit or even a poltergeist.
A flicker of motion in one corner drew Jacob’s gaze like a beacon. Normally, he’d never notice something like that, but after hanging around with people the size of his fingers around, he could never be too careful. He had to keep his eyes open for them.
The risks if he didn’t were far too great.
“Sam? Dean?” he called, his voice low but still shattering the silence. He always felt huge and loud when he was dealing with them, and when they were all on a hunt. After the case with Melanie, he’d tried to learn better stealth, with Dean giving him pointers, but he didn’t think it was working very quickly.
Even so, he crossed the room to where he’d seen the motion, next to a heavy cabinet. He knelt down next to it and shone his flashlight in the corner, expecting to find one of the Winchesters snooping around. He could expect a scold or a harsh complaint if it was Dean.
Instead, there was a surprised little squeak.
Jacob’s eyebrows shot up and he gasped at the sight of a tiny mouse. It was curled up with its back to the corner, and a little pink tail wrapped around the tiny paws. Round ears and a whiskered nose quivered in time with the rapid breaths seen in the tiny curled up body.
“Oh,” Jacob muttered. He’d cornered a mouse. “Uh. Sorry, little guy.” He remembered thinking that the brothers were so close to mice in size when he first started hanging around them. Now, he was seeing, they were definitely bigger than a mouse, or this one was exceptionally small. It might be young.
Jacob didn’t have much time to think about the fact that he’d cornered a tiny little mouse in his search for his friends before a crash sounded elsewhere in the house. It sounded like it came from upstairs, and recognition lit in his eyes. The attic had been cited in the stories about the house several times.
“If you see my friends when you get back in the walls, let them know I went upstairs,” he murmured with a smirk, wondering if Sam and Dean could already hear what he said. Him, their so-called Godzilla, talking to a mouse.
Then, he stood back to his full height, letting his flashlight beam drift away from the mouse. He didn’t watch where its shadowy shape darted to next.
He had to find out what caused that noise. It’s what a good hunter would do.
“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Sherlock griped as Dean directed him across the street. Knowing every road and back-alley in London was only so much help when Sherlock was being led by a tiny man on his shoulder who hadn’t set foot outside in over a decade.
Dean rolled his eyes. “No,” he said pointedly. “The only times I’ve been outside in London, I’ve either been on your shoulder or in a cage.”
Twigs and leaves crunched under a heavy boot as Jacob hiked among the trees, staring around avidly. The pines, straight and tall, stretched high overhead, deep green needles hiding the darkening sky from sight. The air was filled with the fresh scent of those pines, as well as distant maples, and the crisp aroma of a mountain lake. Even as the day came to a close, birds and squirrels bustled about on the branches, chasing each other or holding conversations in their squeaks and chirps. There was a slant to the world that came as an unfamiliar obstacle to Jacob, a native of the flat lands of Iowa.
It was the perfect terrain for hiking. Despite Colorado coming with more chill than he was used to, and thinner air than he usually breathed, it was well worth the trip.
Back at the campsite, his friends were less enthusiastic about the wild outdoors themselves. Camping was a time of relaxation, they’d say. To Jacob, hiking in the trees was relaxing. A chance to get away, take it all in, and live in his own thoughts.
A faint twinge on his back, little more than an itch, prompted Jacob to stop in his tracks. He shifted his backpack around, and then glanced up once more. The evening was getting darker. Knowing his friends, they’d need help getting a fire started.
He turned back towards the campsite, using the slope of the earth and a natural sense of direction to point him in the right direction. He didn’t want to be caught out here when it grew too dark to find his way between the trees.
He didn’t make it three steps before a strange tugging sensation clenched in his middle. With a wince, Jacob stopped again and shut his eyes tight. The thin air around him became thinner and his heart pounded in his ears as though he was suddenly underwater. There was a prickling at his arms and chest, and the sound of more twigs breaking.
Did I fall down a hill?
He opened his eyes, and then closed them again in confusion. When he opened them once more, the scene before him was just as confusing. Jacob stared around him, with the waning sky a canopy overhead, ringed by the mountain range that created a wall across the country.
He could see the sky.
He was taller than the trees.
“What the fuck,” he muttered, his face a mask of shock. His voice, quiet to him, rumbled out of his now-massive chest and made the tips of the trees quiver. They didn’t rise past his shoulders.
The prickling on his arms came from the branches that now poked into him like twigs. Now, an entire pine branch felt like what a pine needle should feel like. He brushed a hand over one branch with his brow furrowed, and flinched when the spindly wood creaked and then snapped from his touch.
“I need help,” he murmured, and now bird and squirrels could be heard scolding him from safely below the tree level where he couldn’t see them. He looked straight down. Past a chest broader than a house and jean-clad legs that towered over some apartment buildings, his boots were planted on the ground, crushing undergrowth that moments ago he’d need to push aside or navigate around.
If Jacob were to guess with his severely-confused senses, he was over a hundred feet tall.
It wasn’t possible. He had to have hit his head on something. It was a hallucination, taking the sensations of the forest around and warping them. He could still smell the maple and the pine, and the mountain lake, he could still feel the chill in the air, but it all took a backseat.
Jacob’s heart did flips as the confusion grew, and he took a lurching, dizzy step. It was clumsy, and he nearly dropped down to his knees in the confusion and vertigo. He was up to high. Jacob had to blink lightheadedness away that could be from the thin air or from the soaring sensation that came with just one step.
People didn’t just grow like this all of a sudden.
He needed to find someone. He took another step with a grimace, and the strange height didn’t go away. If he could just get back to the others, he might be able to find out what had happened to make him grow.
Small dots of flickering orange led him back. Jacob didn’t need his sense of direction as much, now that he stood taller than the trees. He walked towards the campgrounds, glancing down with every step. If there was another hiker down there …
He didn’t want to think about that.
The trees shook as he walked, and many branches snapped against him before he even noticed he was brushing against them. He was too big, the fabric of his hoodie and jeans too thick.
As he walked, more lights flickered to life in the treeless patch that was the main campground park. Jacob could just make out the tiny squares of light that came out of RV windows, and the tiny stars that wavered to and fro near the campfires. Flashlights. He’d probably barely be able to hold one in his fingers if he really was big.
He just needed to find his friends and their tent. They’d get a park ranger to use a phone with signal on it and call for help or something. Then he’d be fine.
Since he was in a hurry and he could hear people talking ahead, Jacob took longer strides to get back. His boots crushed more saplings and left huge indents in the ground, and he didn’t realize until it was too late that a lot of those voices were screaming.
He reached out to push at one tall pine tree, leaning it aside with a prolonged creak, and found the campgrounds in chaos. The fires weren’t surrounded by happy people talking and laughing. The flashlight beams wavered because people were running, shouting to each other.
While he was so preoccupied with how confused he was, Jacob had never considered how frightened they’d be.
“Wait, wait,” he said, his voice booming over the campers that now stood no taller than his fingers. Fuck. I did this wrong. “Please!”
His words didn’t reach them. No one stopped their panic. Tents collapsed as people tore themselves out of them, and belongings were scattered in the pandemonium. Already, some of the fastest runners had reached their cars and the engines roared to life with an urgency that mimicked the shouts from the people.
“No, no, please,” Jacob said again. He let go of the tree and shuffled forward only a step, then lowered himself down. One hand reached for the ground to brace himself, and he hoped that making himself less towering might help.
A boom echoed over the chaos, a loud one, and suddenly a spray of stinging pain lit up in his arm. Jacob jerked his hand back and, in one fluid motion, pushed his sleeve up in surprise. His arm sported several tiny pinpricks of red.
Another shot rang out, and the spray of buckshot from the gun hit his other arm this time. “Ow!” Jacob yelped, falling backwards to a seat. The forest shook, pine needles fell, and more people screamed.
They’re terrified of me, he realized. There was another shot, and he flinched. This one missed him somehow. Despite being the size of one of the nearby hills, someone had missed him.
Because they were so scared they couldn’t see straight.
Jacob’s heart sank and he scrambled back with his hands until he could stumble to his feet. His backpack, now giant along with him, broke the top half off of a younger tree as he whirled around and ran. He couldn’t stay there while everyone was in a panic. Not while he could barely see the ground. Not while they were shooting at him.
He could try again later. Someone had to be able to help him.
Something ancient is stalking people in town, and now it has its sights set on a certain pair of hunters in town. Sam and Dean find more to handle than they ever expected, and an evil that sets them against each other.
“Raise,” Dean said confidently, pushing his chips to the center.
The man across from him fidgeted at that, staring out at the five cards aligned on the table. Out there sat two aces… he knew that if Dean had the other two, it was all over for him. Even if Dean only had one ace, the guy risked going up against a full house.
Dean stared solidly back, his years of hunting serving him well and hiding his own tells. Out of everyone watching the game, the only person that could call his bluff was currently concealed in his chest pocket.
Sam, barely four inches tall, was adept at reading facial expressions. His small size meant that every little twitch and uncertain flicker that passed over Dean’s face, or any other human’s face, was easy for the small hunter to read.
Normally, Sam never came out to a bar like this. A rowdy bar scene wasn’t a safe place for him to relax and hang out with Dean. Plus, there was no way for him to enjoy a drink with his older brother, since he couldn’t risk coming out of the pocket. But this trip wasn’t just for relaxing and building up their stack of emergency cash.
Walt nearly held his breath, his eyes locked on his target.
Sitting not one foot from where he was crouched in hiding, the dustbunnies looming over his head, a gleam of metal could be seen sticking out from underneath a bag casually dropped there by the room’s resident human.
Soon that man would leave, and Walt was banking on that man leaving behind the forgotten razor, a discard from his exacto-knife that meant nothing to the human but could mean the difference between life or death to the much smaller man.
Slow breath out, careful breath in.
Use the silence as a cloak. Walt’s hair, normally so vibrantly blond, was dark and dirty, coated in dust and dirt from the walls. His fair skin was the same, making him hard to spot in his black and brown clothing. Mallory had just made it, his darkest set for his supply runs. He was just a shadow in the dark, able to see his surroundings better than any human ever could in the shadows.
The creak of the floorboards under the human’s gargantuan weight heralded the man coming back over to the beds. A shadow fell over Walt’s surroundings, making him fade even more into the darkness. He shut his mouth tight, holding his breath.
The man never spotted Walt hiding there, or the discarded razor left behind. He merely grabbed his backpack off the ground, slinging it onto his arms with quick motions that would sent Walt flying, and headed for the door.
And that was it.
Walt remained in hiding for another ten minutes, waiting out the human. The roar of an engine was heard outside the door, and that quickly faded into the distance. Another human, off on another day of unimaginable activities and actions. Walt didn’t know what humans did with their time, but he knew what they did in the motel. It all seemed so calm compared to the fight he lived each and every day to keep his Mallory and Bree safe and sound.
Darting into the open, he scooped up the razor and tucked it into his jacket. Tonight he could check how sharp the edges were, and use the sharpening stones he’d slowly gathered to hone it into a weapon. Rats always tried to encroach on their home, and with this he now had a worthy weapon, ready to fight them off and protect his family.
Brothers Apart 