August 31st excerpt:
“I get scared a lot,” Oscar said, staring at the way his hands couldn’t cover one fingertip, even with his own fingers spread as far as they would go. “A-an’ I never came up on the beds before. I’m not very brave…”
Tag: g/t writing
After the Hunt
A Brothers Found short story.
It was the light that woke him.
Sam Winchester, cursed to live at four inches in height, was not used to waking up to bright sunlight in his room. For years, he’d lived under the floorboards in the Trails West with his adopted family, staring up at what little light managed to trickle between the floorboards. The dark confines of their home were warm and safe, welcoming for the people who were smaller than a hand.
So opening his eyes to a brightly lit open space was the last thing Sam expected to see.
Looking around the room didn’t clear things up for him. His memories of the night before were still fuzzy and unfocused, mixing up with the varied dreams he’d had. Sam sucked in a gasp of surprise when he saw a massive human lying in a bed only a foot away, peaceful breaths of air drawn into lungs bigger than Sam… or his bed… or even his home.
Sam curled his legs closer, trying to make himself as small as possible while his mind raced. What had happened? He didn’t remember getting caught… at least not since Jacob first got his hands on him.
Then he spotted Jacob lying in the other bed, his face just as relaxed as the other man’s, and the memories came rushing back.
A bit of the tension unwound from Sam’s back. That man lying so close by was Dean. Sam’s determination had lead him and Jacob to the hunter’s doorstep, culminating in a reunion that was long overdue. Sam calmed his breathing and did his best to relax, repeating to himself that he was with his older brother, and Dean would never let anything happen to him.
That fact was clearly underlined by Dean’s reaction to the bruises covering Sam’s torso. It was the outcome of a mistake by Jacob, holding Sam just a little too tight, and the teenager was repentant. He’d helped Sam and driven the cursed man over eight hours to find his older brother, and so Sam had forgiven him.
Dean was a harder sell, especially only seconds after discovering Sam was alive. Sam had prevented Dean from putting more than an impressive bruise on the kid, and had a feeling that if he’d let Dean keep going, Jacob would have been tossed out of the room with no other thanks.
There was a shifting on the bed Dean was sleeping on, and Sam found himself curling more of the blanket– which, when he looked down at what he was sitting on, discovered it to be a black t-shirt– around himself so he didn’t feel so exposed.
Green eyes blinked tiredly open and Sam could swear his neck tingled as they glanced around at the room. It was a full minute before comprehension fell over Dean’s face, and he saw Sam sitting there, arms around his knees and trying his best to hide in plain sight.
“Hey,” Dean said softly. His eyes briefly flicked to Jacob to make sure he was asleep, then back to Sam. “How you feelin,’ pint-size?”
Nerves or not, Sam couldn’t hide a roll of his eyes at the nickname he had a feeling Dean would never give up on. At least, not from the look in his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, more insistent than he meant to be. A doubtful look crossed Dean’s face, and Sam knew he wasn’t hiding his nerves as well as he thought.
Sam hunched his shoulders. “Just… not used to being out in the open like this,” he said hesitantly. It felt like he was admitting a weakness.
Understanding filled Dean’s eyes, and the hard look that always seemed to be on his face softened. “You fell asleep after the hunt,” he said in an attempt to explain. “I… wasn’t sure where else to… put you.”
The same hesitation filled Dean’s voice, and Sam realized his older brother had no better idea about how they were supposed to handle things than he did. For some reason, that made him feel a little better. He might not know what he was doing, but neither did Dean.
“Maybe…” Dean was scanning the room while he talked. “I’m sure we can find somewhere hidden for you to stay. Y’know… if you wanted to.”
Sam looked into those green eyes, trying to ignore the way they were the size of his head, and saw hope, and fear, and nerves that almost equaled his own. He remembered the night before, when Dean almost didn’t want to believe that Sam was back.
“Of course I want to stick around,” Sam said, his voice so soft that Dean found himself leaning in. Sam twined his fingers together, focusing on them more than the gigantic hunter. “I just… should get my stuff from my home. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone there when we left. Wasn’t… really sure we’d actually find you.”
“Well, you found me,” Dean said, grinning at Sam. After a second of contemplation, he moved his arm and Sam found a hand reaching towards him. He tried to not flinch, but stiffened completely and squinted his eyes shut.
Something large touched the top of his head, then lightly ruffled his hair. Sam opened up his eyes to see Dean’s hand already retreating back to his side and realized it had only been a fingertip.
“You’ll have a hard time losing me, ever again.”
August 30th excerpt:
“Oh!” Oscar said in a surprised hush, stepping back from the poke. It nearly tickled, but more than that it was still a strange feeling, all these nudges from a finger bigger than his body. He put his hands over his middle, absently clutching at the fabric of his shirt while he looked back at Dean.
“I didn’t eat it,” he said, with the exact tone of a kid wanting to avoid trouble. “I just picked it up. I was gonna eat it, um, later, but if you wanna I can put it back.”
August 29th excerpt:
To the side, he saw something that usually drew him like a moth to a lantern. Breadcrumbs, left behind by some previous meal. On a normal day Oscar would be gathering each tiny piece in his bag, just in case it was all he’d find.
“I found another piece of that bread on the floor earlier, before you came in,” he announced, looking back up at Dean. “I …” He stopped abruptly and felt his cheeks flush. That piece of bread wasn’t on the floor anymore. Oscar had it stowed in his bag, and he’d more or less just admitted to Dean that he took something from the room.
August 28th excerpt:
“D-” he enunciated, and then immediately paused. His cheeks turned red while he whispered the sounds he knew to himself, trying to work out the pair of vowels. His hands worried the strap of his bag. “Eh, ah, um…” He huffed quietly and then his eyebrows shot up. “Dean?” he tried, saying it slowly and looking up at the human with a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Oh! You mean like the other half of Brothers Unexpected?
We couldn’t leave Dean completely out of the story, and what’s more unexpected than a tiny, innocent Oscar, paired up with the man that monsters fear?!
You’ve earned a full sneak peak of #auv for sure!
Oscar saw the hand coming, and felt like everything around him slowed down. From the moment that human had laid eyes on him, he’d known this would follow. The ground quaked from the giant feet hitting the floor, but Oscar could only hear the pounding of his own heart.
His mouth opened in a soundless yelp of fear and he tried to lurch backwards, scooting with his hands. The hand came closer and closer and beyond it he could see the human’s focused, intense gaze.
He couldn’t stop this from happening. It was going to go exactly as his mom always warned him it would if a human spotted him.
He’d be captured and claimed, like a pet or a toy. They might keep him in a cage so he couldn’t get away, couldn’t go free ever again. He might get hurt when the human realized why he was in the room, and he wouldn’t have any excuse other than he was hungry. Who knew if that would work?
The terror overwhelmed him and he couldn’t even prop himself up on his hands. With a cry, Oscar fell backwards, only to roll onto his side and curl up into as small a ball as he could. He was desperate to avoid getting hurt when that hand reached him and caught him.
Dean felt some of the worry and tension leave him as his hand closed around the tiny figure, scooping him easily off the ground. Now, at least, he didn’t have to fret about a tiny kid on the floor that he could accidentally step on.
Lifting his hands, closed around the tiny boy he’d seen on the floor, staring up at him with equally wide-eyed shock to what Dean felt, he wondered if he’d really seen what he thought he saw. A tiny kid? In his room. Dean knew a lot of stuff out there that people thought were myths or fairy tales were real, but… tiny kids?
Was he living The Borrowers?
August 27th excerpt:
Dean hesitated with his hands cupped close to his face. He had to be imagining things. He was going to open up his hands, and there would be nothing in there. Or, he amended, feeling a tiny weight in there and ticklish flutters against his palm, there’ll just be some mouse or moth. Can’t be a kid.
There isn’t a full AU for it, but there was a prompt way back a year ago that I wrote for Dean (It was called Cursed Dean at the time). I probably won’t be able to find the time to do anything more with it, but there’s the possibility of a collaborative AU with neon where Sam is the tall one and Dean is the small one.
Cursed Dean:
Dean’s hand went to his amulet, the memory of his younger brother, big hazel eyes staring hopefully at him as he opened the gift coming back as clear as day. He would never risk taking it off, afraid of losing it to an errant gust of air, or slipping into a crack to vanish forever.
After all, that same brother was now a towering giant, wherever he might be. If he found Dean, he would simply catch his older brother and drop him into a cage. Maybe worse, depending on the way their dad had trained him. Dean would cling to those memories like a lifeboat, knowing he’d never see Sam again.
Sammy…
Those memories would never leave him, but here and now he needed to stay sharp. He came up to the end of the vent, suspended up in the air almost six feet. The design of the motel had never made sense to him, but who was he to question it?
No one would listen to a man that stood under four inches tall.
Dean leaned against the grate, staring out into the immense motel room.
The vertigo hit him, as it always did, but this was more important than his fears or the thought of getting teased because he was afraid of heights. Those eyes, seen so briefly in the room earlier, haunted him. Soft, familiar hazels that forced his mind into the past, to a time before he’d been cursed. So many years ago now… soon he would have lived over half his life under this infernal curse.
At the table below, the man that had checked in earlier was sitting with a dusty old book. One huge hand turned the page with a loud crinkle, smoothing it carefully down. Fluffy brown hair was scattered messily about, in clear need of a good brush. Dean’s hand went to his own hair instinctively, trying to fix his spiky style. Cutting it himself didn’t make it easy, but he persevered.
While Dean was distracted, he accidentally leaned too much of his weight on the grate. With a loud, echoing Creak! the air vent slid shut, sending him to his knees without warning. He slammed into the metal ground with a loud (to his ears) thump.
He froze.
For a long, heart-stopping moment, there was nothing but silence.
Then, it came. The most terrifying sound he could have heard.
A shifting of fabric in the motel room outside indicated the human standing. “Hello?” rumbled a curious voice from outside, making Dean shiver once with worry. The human was tall enough to see into the vent while standing if he wanted to, and if he realized what was hiding from him in there…
Dean didn’t move, simply trying to wait it out. The human would just assume he heard the motel settling, just like anyone else. No reason to check the vent, no way to see Dean in there.
No such luck.
There was a creak from the vent again. The human was moving it. He needed to get out of there, now. If he got caught by such a huge human, the largest he’d ever seen, there would be no hope of escape.
Dean went to run, and fell flat on his back. His satchel! When the grate had closed it had snagged the strap, effectively trapping the small human.
Original Ask || Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7
August 26th excerpt:
Halfway out, he tripped on the thick carpet fibers. Stumbling, he toppled forward and landed on his front with a quiet Oof! that sent ice up his spine. He turned to look over his shoulder at the bed behind him to see if he’d been heard.
The tiny sound was just barely audible over Dean’s breathing. His eyes blinked open, staring blankly up at the ceiling while what he’d heard sunk into his head.
August 24th excerpt:
“I’ll take a coffee, black, with a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich,” Dean ordered at the drive-thru window. His voice was still gruff from waking up and not grabbing a drink.
Sam was sitting down on the seat, calmly watching everything that went on around him with a steady eye. From there, he couldn’t be seen from the drive-thru window, and there were no walkways nearby for a passerby to peek in at him. He could have a few minutes where he was sitting on the seat just like anyone else did.
A shadow moved overhead and Sam craned his neck back. He watched as Dean steadily turned the wheel directly above, angling them out of the drive-thru. The car shifted to a faster speed, and Sam latched a hand onto the seam of Dean’s pants. As silly as it was, it was better than going flying with the car moving around. Dean wouldn’t be able to grab him in time.
Brothers Apart 