May 1st excerpt:
Trying to get a reaction, Sam lightly nudged the kid in the side, hoping to coax him out of his ball. “C’mon, you can’t stay like that forever,” Sam insisted.
Tag: kiddo oz
April 30th excerpt:
Oscar was so dizzy from leaving the floor behind so fast that he almost didn’t realize what had caused it. With the words echoing so close to where he sat now, it clicked. He’d been picked up, plucked right off the floor. The hands cupped under him weren’t as massive as they would be if the human was fully grown, but that hardly mattered. Oscar’s weight offered no resistance at all.
He almost shrank away from the fingertip brushing his arm, but then I didn’ wan’ you running away echoed in his head in time with his desperate gasps. He was good and caught now. If he tried to run, he’d just be caught again.
April 29th excerpt:
When light flooded into the small space again, Oscar squeaked in alarm and tried to push himself back without keeping his balance. He flopped backwards before righting himself and scooting away, one hand up to guard against the light.
He bumped into the other side of his erstwhile prison and flinched away from the fingers. A cry rose in his throat and he looked back and forth for some other way out of this mess.
He found none, and finally covered his face with his hands. The tears came in a tide along with a choked wail of fear.
“Oh no!”
What would happen if kid Jacob found Oscar instead of Dean?
Oh my gosh. The two sweetest characters, as kiddos? It would be such a cute meeting. After Jacob calmed down enough to stop scaring the little guy, of course.
Jacob would probably pick Oscar up before anything else, which would definitely scare the bejeezus out of him. Oscar would have to curl up into a ball, and he would cry almost immediately, which would jar Jacob out of everything else. He’s a sweet kid and couldn’t bear to see a potential little friend crying, so Oscar would find himself in a hug with a kid younger than him trying to console him.
Once Jacob offers to share his snacks with Oscar, he’ll win him over. Food is the quickest way to Oscar’s heart.
The Lounge || Sams of a Feather (4 of 4)
While Dean went to order, Sam knelt down next to Oscar, his drab clothes matching the small kid’s the best out of the group. “I grew up in a motel, too,” he said, looking between the spritely Sam and Bowman and Oscar. “When we visited Wellwood, it was a lot brighter than my old home.”
“You went to Wellwood?” spritely Sam repeated, respect in his face.
Sam grinned. “And Dean went and snatched Bowman right out of the air, so you better watch out if you ever run into him.”
As expected, Bowman bristled. His wings puffed up and he straightened. “He better not try,” he warned. “I’ll bop him if he does. Just figures I’d wait to meet him and he’d try to grab me!”
Oscar smiled faintly. “W-well, Dean’s not the worst human to grab ya,” he admitted. He shared a look with the Sam next to him; they’d both been grabbed at first, only for it to turn out to be one of the best things that could have happened to them. If they had simply run away, their stories never would have begun.
“Do you really, um, bop humans? That’s real brave!”
Jacob, feeling like more of a giant than ever with such a tiny kid at the table, rested his head on his arms. “He definitely will if he gets the chance,” he replied. “Hell, Sam might join him if the human earns it.”
Spritely Sam snickered. “You should know.”
After ordering food at the bar, Dean enlisted the kids help in carrying it all over to the table with the new trio at it. Dean had the drinks on his tray (since he didn’t quite trust his younger-self alone with the mugs of beer), while the other Dean had the food on his tray, and balancing carefully on it was Sam with the smaller tray of food and drink.
“Whoa, that’s awesome!” the teenager declared when he spotted the glider sitting on the table.
“C’mon, put the tray down!” Sam bugged him, almost hopping in place where he waited.
Both Deans did so, the teenager mussing up Sam’s hair for the barked commands.
“We’ve got a round of drinks on the house,” Dean said, passing off a mug for Jacob and putting his own to the side. The younger Sam bolted to the small table sitting at the center of the table, putting his tray down and separating the drinks and food.
“Pine tea,” Dean said as Sam put a mug down on an empty spot, “milk for growing bones, and juice.” He gave his younger self a smirk.
“Plus the bartender gave us these mintcakes!” Sam announced, his short arms just able to reach to place one in each spot. “Oscar, ya gotta try one!”
The mention of food caught Oscar’s attention, to no one’s surprise. His eyes lingered on the glider for a second more, but soon enough he turned to wander curiously towards the table and his own Sam. “Mint cakes?” he echoed, already eyeing one of the places next to a glass of milk.
“No way,” Bowman said, following. He reached the table just as Oscar did and stared dubiously at his setting. The steaming pine tea and mintcake looked like they could have been made in Wellwood itself. “How–”
“The man at the bar can make any food we want!” Oscar explained with a delighted grin.
Jacob sat up so he could spy on the miniature settings on the table. The tiny cakes were familiar indeed. They looked no different from the ones Sam had shared with him.
“Better try it out, Bowman. Make sure it’s up to par.”
Bowman shot him a glare, even as he picked up the mug of tea. “I don’t know what that means!” he groused, before taking a sip.
“Do ya like it?” Oscar asked, watching Bowman closely. He’d never seen someone with wings before, so both Bowman and the new Sam fascinated him.
Bowman sighed and shrugged. “It’s like my aunt made it,” he admitted begrudgingly.
“Dean, you should try!” the younger Sam enthused, holding up an extra mintcake for his brother.
Giving his older self the side-eye, the teenager sat down right by where Sam’s seat was. “Mintcakes?” he asked dubiously, reaching out and letting Sam put one down on his fingertip.
His worries washed away the moment he bit down on the candy-sized morsel. “This is almost as good as pie.”
“Told you,” Sam said smugly.
Dean finished off his bite, then begrudgingly drank the juice the original Dean had ordered him. It was good, just not as good as a ice cold mug of beer. He eyes that up, then looked for something else to distract him.
Bowman and the newest Sam were obvious choices.
“How fast are you, anyway?” Dean asked, poking at one of the sprite’s leafy wings.
The offended wing twitched back from the contact and fanned open. He barely resisted slapping his wing against the intruding hand; Dean was just a kid. This one was, anyway. More than one of most blasted humans should be more confusing.
Faster than anyone in Wellwood!“ he boasted proudly.
"Where’s that?” Oscar asked, already up on his chair and swinging his legs back and forth. He’d made some progress on his mintcake but now he watched Bowman’s twitching wings.
Jacob smirked. “He’s got a point, Bowman. Not in Wellwood now.”
“So, I’m plenty fast,” Bowman protested. “Right, Sam?”
“Faster than my glider,” Sam said indulgently. “And faster than the other sprites. He sneaks out to race the others at night.” He looked up at the teenager, smiling. It was like looking into a mirror of the older brother he’d lost so long ago. His Dean would be older, like the other one sitting with them, but it was nice to remember. “We’ll have to show you after we eat.”
“While you eat, how ‘bout you tell us what brought you to Bowman?” the other Sam offered. “We’ve got a collection of stories going so far, and I have a feeling you might have one of the more interesting ones.”
“Then maybe I can try the glider?” asked the younger Sam from where he was sitting, his legs kicking back and forth under the seat.
Spritely Sam smiled and nodded. “I think I can manage a ride or two,” he said, eyeing up his younger self and judging his size. “There’s a few extra belts in my supplies I could rig up.”
The Lounge || Advent of the Deans (5 of 5)
“Milk for growing bones!” the bartender announced, dropping two cups off at the tiny bar for the young Sam and Oscar where they stood.
“What’s your story, kid?” called the smaller Dean from his spot. He patted the seat next to him. “C’mon! Join us!”
Oscar looked up from his hands, where he was counting out how many people were at the bar now. Realizing that the Dean over there– a Dean at his scale!– was talking to him, he perked up in surprise. “O-okay,” he answered, glancing to his Sam curiously.
There sure were a lot of Sams and Deans to keep track of.
He started towards the bar and finally noticed the biggest person there was watching him. His head tilted back to meet Jacob’s curious but gentle gaze. Even from up on the bar, he was huge.
“Hey, bud,” Jacob greeted as quietly as he could. His deep voice still startled the absolutely minuscule child. Oz couldn’t be much more than two inches, even smaller than the young Sam walking with him.
“Um. Hi!” Oscar replied, before finally reaching the bar. Scrambling up onto the stool next to the small Dean, he had to grip the edge to keep from spinning around on the stool. As fun as that sounded, he had at least one thing to set straight.
He stared in awe at the Dean his size. Still a much taller man. “I’m Oscar, ” he said, making sure the guy at least knew his actual name before the nickname sank in.
“And he’s shortstop,” regular Dean put in from behind their seats, smirking as his tiny doppelgänger’s annoyed scowl.
“My name is not shortstop!” he snapped up at Dean. “At least my ass ain’t the size of Texas! ”
“Oh, I’m shaking in my boots,” Dean said dryly, a wry grin across his face as he needled his tiny double.
“Dean, chill,” his Sam sighed, pushing against the hand Dean had draped near the tiny bar.
Once the smaller Dean was sure Dean was done with his shit, and the second Sam sat down next to his young counterpart, waving for his own beer, to the annoyance of the teenager Dean (“Everyone gets a drink but me,” he mumbled in annoyance.), the smaller Dean was able to focus on Oscar.
“Oscar, eh?” he asked, skipping on the nickname after his own trouble escaping his. “You been keeping these two out of trouble?”
The young Sam sitting next to Oscar pulled his cup of milk closer and giggled. “Only Dean gets himself into trouble!”
Oscar grinned and nodded, following along with his Sam and answering Dean at the same time. After watching so many of the others bicker, with other versions of themselves, he was almost surprised to be addressed again. Normally he’d be more frightened in this situation, but for now he was simply nervous, and that was normal for him.
He took a curious sip of his own glass of milk. The first time he ever tried it.
“I showed Sam how ta climb! I showed my Sam, anyway,” he explained, looking to the smaller Dean again and hoping for his approval.
“An’ I showed him how to get in the walls and hide and stuff, since he was new to being our size and he needed a teacher. I never got to be a teacher before. It was real fun, I wish…. I wish I coulda done more.”
The small Dean smiled, as proud as Oscar hoped. “You did exactly what you should.” Oscar beamed with pride of his own.
“See Sam?” the regular Dean nudged his Sam, noticing that the two older Sams were sitting on the outside of the bar, guarding the others. “You coulda gotten by without Walt!”
Sam huffed, pushing Dean’s finger away. “Looks like you did a good job,” he complemented Oscar, ruffling his younger counterpart’s hair. “And there’s always hope for another chance.” After hearing the kid’s story earlier, his heart went out for the youngest and scrawniest there. Oscar would be alone when he left the Lounge, the only one on his own out of everyone there.
“So what about you two?” the regular Dean turned the question around on the pair of tiny Winchesters. “I have got to hear about how you two hooked up with Godzilla over here!”
That Sam smirked. “It all started with this pie we found…”
“Do not insult the pie!” tiny Dean bitched, sweeping his slice protectively off the bar and cradling it close. “That was the best pie I’ve ever had!”
Jacob laughed, keeping it quiet for the small, sensitive ears of the smaller occupants of the bar. The nickname that his own Dean had given him almost sounded strange coming from someone else. It was another Dean, with a story of his own, arriving at the same exact jab at Jacob’s size.
“It was kinda a rough start,” he admitted, watching as little Oscar eyed the slice of pie Dean was defending. Without even having to ask, the kid had his own tiny slice placed in front of him by that ever-amused bartender. It was like he pulled things out of thin air.
“I was between jobs and I stopped at a diner, left a slice of pie in a to go box on the table. Someone couldn’t resist.” He winked at his own Dean, getting their story going while the others listened in.
Above their heads, the television screen rippled until the words Chasing Family were proudly displayed.
Soon, the bartender knew, more would join them.
The fun was only just beginning.
The Lounge || Advent of the Deans (4 of 5)
With all the excitement at the bar, the teenager by the arcade machines wrapped up his game and stepped back, walking over slowly, watching the floor. In one hand, his young little brother was cupped, but little Sammy was watching Dean’s shoulder with something akin to awe. The other Sam was perched on a shoulder like it was nothing, chaperoning the kids.
“How come he gets to drink beer?” the young teenaged Dean bitched when he saw what Jacob had in his hands.
“Because you’re not old enough to drink in Ireland, kiddo,” adult Dean countered without missing a beat. “Come back in a few years and then we’ll talk.”
Jacob eyed the newcomers, even more bemused to find himself meeting yet another Dean. This one was younger than him this time, though he also had plenty of practice with the little guys.
Really little guys. The Sam on his hand wasn’t even three inches tall. Jacob wasn’t sure he would have recognized him as Sam normally. The details of his tiny face were lost even just a few steps away.
He smirked faintly and shrugged at the younger Dean. “My Dean gave me permission,” he quipped.
Even if it was cheeky of him, it was totally worth it to see the pouty scowl on the kid-Dean’s face. He shot a grin to the Sam on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey, Sam, Sam, and Dean,” he greeted, bemused as ever by the fact that there was more than one of the Winchester brothers here. “I’m Jacob.”
Oscar had wandered around the room again after they all had their meal. With yet more people coming in, he had decided to make himself scarce again, and greet them on his own time.
The new human was bigger than anyone he had ever seen in his life. Huge, and broad, even bigger than the adult Dean! Oscar all but dove behind the first structure he could.
It happened to be the bar. He found out when he wandered around a corner and found the bartender right there, amiably cleaning a glass while he listened in to the introductions on the other side. Deep voices mixed with the quieter cadences of more people Oscar’s size, but he wasn’t thinking about that.
He figured he should scurry back to one of the other tables. He didn’t want to be in the way.
As he turned, a shadow slid over him and he flinched. A hand dropped down in front of him, scooping under his feet. Oscar squeaked as he lost his balance and rolled onto a broad palm.
It was a familiar feeling, but he still curled into a ball as the bartender lifted him off the floor. He caught a glimpse of the man’s good-natured but very entertained smirk before the hand tilted. Oscar flailed his arms before rolling onto the polished wood top of the bar itself.
“Oh,” he muttered, counting how many people were around now. A lot more than he was used to, that was for sure.
“Hey, Oz!” at least two voices said in time, one older and one younger. The smaller Sam and Dean, sitting bemused at their bar, looked back at their larger counterparts.
“Oz?” the small Dean asked.
That was when the teenager Dean noticed a third version of him sitting at the bar. “Dude!” He scrambled into the seat next to regular Dean, letting his brother off onto the bartop to start over to Oscar and allowing the older Sam to climb casually down and saunter over to his Dean.
“Why’s everyone so surprised by me?” tiny Dean complained, eyeing up the younger version of himself with suspicion. After his larger counterpart had swiped him off Jacob, he was having a hard time letting his guard down.
“What happened?” the regular Dean asked, brushing a fingertip over the tiny spike of hair and getting cussed out.
Sam shrugged, sipping at his quart of beer. “Dad didn’t make it back in time, I’d say.” He eyed the two large Deans up. “I’m guessing that’s how you both got away.”
“Still couldn’t get Sammy out of the way,” the youngest Dean said grimly.
“But you caught him before Dad dragged you out of the room,” regular Dean corrected, softening as his own little brother walked past his arm to look at a Dean his size with fascination. “Coulda been worse.”
The Lounge || Advent of the Deans (3 of 5)
The little Dean bristled when he saw Dean looking at his Sam. “Don’t even think about grabbing Sam like that!” he commanded bossily, making his taller counterpart smirk in amusement.
“Oh?” Dean drawled lazily, claiming the seat directly behind the tiny bar set up for them. “And I’m guessin’ you’ll be the one stopping me, shortstop?” He winked at the new Sam in the room, letting him know it was all just a joke, and Sam nodded back, relaxing a little as he walked closer to the pair of Deans.
“Yes, I will,” Dean snipped back, pointedly taking his stool at the miniature bar just in time for a tiny glass of whiskey, complete with ice and a nearly-microscopic napkin, appear in front of him, courtesy of the bartender. It was quickly followed by an equally small slice of apple pie and fork made for it, and a mug of beer, looking the size of a quart next to Sam. “I trained up Jacob, didn’t I?”
Jacob snickered quietly at that. He didn’t even have an argument for it. ‘Trained’ had become a word that suited him pretty well, when it came to the tiny brothers that had perched on his shoulders mere moments ago. He’d learned to listen especially carefully to their quiet voices, always ready to accommodate them if they needed it.
He received a beer of his own, along with a silent smirk from the bartender, and almost went off his train of thought for a moment. He couldn’t place who the guy was like he had with Dean.
“If this Dean is anything like you are, I don’t know how much luck you’ll have training him,” he commented with a shrug. Jacob didn’t have to grow up with the little guy to know how headstrong he could be.
“Besides. He probably already knows how to fix a car, I just had to take the class to fix up the Impala.”
Dean arched his back pridefully. “I’ve rebuilt that car from the ground up before,” he bragged shamelessly, wiggling his fingers at his smaller self. “With my bare hands.”
Little Dean scoffed, and tossed back his whiskey, eyebrows going up when he tasted it. Unlike the whiskey at Bobby’s, which was likely home-brewed or from a box, this was top shelf stuff. It went down smooth as ice, and didn’t burn his throat.
“Another!” he declared, slamming the glass down on the bar and looking hopefully at the bartender.
“Don’t go reliving the other night,” Sam hissed.
The Lounge || Advent of the Deans (2 of 5)
Jacob took hesitant steps toward the bar. His eyes trailed on the ground, not knowing who Oscar was but certain he’d find out. In the meantime, he wouldn’t put the little guy at risk.
He arrived at the bar and took a seat. There was a beat of hesitation before he settled his arms on the bar so his passengers had a way down. Leaving them to their short climb, he nodded at the much taller Dean.
“I’m Jacob Andris,” he greeted, looking bemused. “How … how’s it going?”
“Jacob?” Dean repeated, a grin blossoming on his face. He clapped the kid on the back, earning a look from the Dean perched close by on a shoulder. “Bowman told us all about ya!”
“Do you mind? ” Dean snipped from where he was sitting. No matter how much Jacob tried, he couldn’t completely stop the impact from jostling Dean and Sam a bit.
Dean poked at smaller-him in the side curiously. “Dude, since when am I bitty? ”
The much smaller Dean batted at the questing finger in aggravation. “Dude, quit it!”
They stared at each other, and the regular-sized Dean burst into a grin. “Awesome.”
Before Dean or Jacob could react, Dean had nabbed his smaller counterpart off the teenager’s shoulder, setting him down on the bar before he could get a swipe in with his tiny knife. “Bartender!” Dean called out, “we need a whiskey and apple pie over here, stat!”
“Coming right up!”
Sam stared at where his older brother was standing now, in just as much shock as Dean was down on the bar. “What in the world,” he said weakly, though he could feel the underlying current in the room that said they were safe. As boisterous and odd as this new Dean seemed, he wasn’t a danger.
Just excitable.
“Uh,” Jacob said, once again at a loss for what to say next. He didn’t have any clue who Bowman was. He had a strange feeling he might someday, but for now the name rang no bells. He decided to just let that one slide by.
Instead, he eyed Dean– the one he knew– down on the bar. The little guy wasn’t hurt at all, but he’d definitely never left Jacob’s shoulder behind so fast. The taller Dean was swift, and clearly had enough experience handling someone smaller than himself. Little Dean didn’t have a scratch on him.
In fact, he’d been set down next to a miniature version of the bar they sat at. Jacob grinned at the sight, and reached down to nudge one of the stools.
“Check it out, guys, you got front row seating,” he mused, giving the stool a light twirl. “Sam, you wanna order anything?”
“Maybe just a beer,” Sam said, his voice low.
That didn’t stop the bartender from overhearing. “One beer, comin’ up!”
Sam slowly climbed down Jacob’s arm, taking in the new, unfamiliar surroundings. The warm lighting overhead pushed away any shadows, and though Sam was shy as he saw the other Dean glance over at him, a telltale tingle going up his neck at the motion, he knew the man meant no harm.
Not that the smaller Dean would ever believe them.
The Lounge || Advent of the Deans (1 of 5)
Welcome to the AU lounge! A place of relaxation conceived and helped designed by all the readers and visitors to the world of Brothers Apart! Stay awhile, kick up your boots, and have some pie!
Jacob paused and blinked deliberately. A sudden shift of his surroundings caught him off guard enough that he stiffened, taking in a sharp breath. They weren’t in the Impala anymore, shortly after he’d agreed to travel with the Winchesters. The key to the car, like precious metal, was nowhere to be found, along with any of their other possessions.
They were in … a bar? A diner?
He frowned around the room, noticing the arcade machines lined up against one wall. There was a kid by one of them, a teen only a handful of years younger than Jacob. He was intent on the screen, not even noticing Jacob’s sudden appearance there.
There were two others that he could see, both at the bar. One man stood behind it, and gave him a knowing smirk and a nod. Jacob was too bamboozled to return the greeting right away.
His plan to walk over there and find out what was going on stopped abruptly when he took a closer look at the other guy, leaning against the bar with a glass in one hand.
Tall, sporting a worn leather jacket and jeans, and with a spike of light-brown hair atop his head, the man was the spitting image of Dean, who was currently perched on Jacob’s shoulder, not quite four inches tall.
He stared for another beat of hesitation, and then realized that the guy didn’t just look like Dean. He was Dean. No curse on him, standing at full human size. Enjoying a drink at the bar while a tiny double of himself stood on someone’s shoulder several yards away.
“Uh. Okay,” he muttered, glancing to his shoulders without turning his head. “What’s …” he trailed off, finally noticing the tiny furniture resting on top of all other other furniture in the room. Perfect miniatures of each table, with their own chairs and some place settings here and there. A glance at one of the unoccupied arcade machines revealed a tiny Winchester-sized console on the panel.
“Yeah, so this is weird,” he finally managed a full sentence. “Guys, what do I do?”
They were interrupted before either of the tiny brothers with him could respond. “C’mon in!” called the Dean that loitered at the bar. “They have all you can eat pie.”
That certainly made the Dean with Jacob perk right up. “Pie?”
Sam rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t see Dean from where he sat. That tone of voice was easily recognizable. “Dude, you had an entire slice of pie to yourself a few weeks ago.”
“But pie.”
The Dean waiting for them at the bar gestured at the seats. “Just watch your step. I’m not sure where Oscar got off to. The others are playing Mario.”
Others. Jacob glanced at the arcade console and realized that there must be other people Sam and Dean’s– his Sam and Dean– size over there. He couldn’t see them past the teenager, but some notion popped into his head that they must be Sams.
Plural Sams and Deans. Holy shit.
Brothers Apart 