Sam grinned broadly as he found the perfect spot to sit.
Dangling his legs off the edge, Sam patiently waited for Dean to reappear. Dean was off searching for signs of a spirit while Sam checked the walls for a hexbag, their usual routine on the job. With the family gone, they didn’t even have to worry about anyone spotting Sam, a bonus.
It wasn’t long before the rhythmic footsteps could be felt echoing up the solid supports of the bookshelf. Dean entered the study, his EMF meter slowly panning from side to side.
“Hey!” Sam called out, smugly settled in his spot, above Dean’s head. He estimated about a good half foot between him and the spike of dirty blond hair that Dean was so proud of.
Dean looked up, his eyebrows climbing his face as he saw how high Sam was.
“What you doing up there?” he asked gruffly, jabbing the EMF meter in Sam’s direction. The buzzer blipped for a moment, then went back down to zero.
Sam shrugged and hooked his hands together behind his head. “Taking it all in,” he said.
Dean cocked his head to the side, confusion on his face.
Sam took pity. “Y’know, looking down at you. Just like I’m supposed to.”
Ever since the Spirit dream with Bowman, the brothers’ had discovered that Sam’s true height outstripped Dean’s by several inches. The younger brother might look smaller than Dean because of his curse, but he was, in fact, the tallest in the family.
Dean rolled his eyes dramatically. “Look who’s talkin,’ shorty,” he snarked back, holding a hand up for Sam to step into.
Sam did, casually sauntering to the center of Dean’s palm.
This is canon to Fairy Tales, and takes place sometime before Bowman met Jacob and discovered that humans exist.
Approx. reading time: ~5 mins
It wasn’t the first time Bowman had stayed out later than he should. The balmy summer heat and the long sunsets always played tricks on him, prompting him to fly just a little farther. Bowman relished his days out of the village, exploring his forest and learning every tree, every boulder, every animal trail.
At night, by contrast, Wellwood became foreboding and dangerous. Bowman was not equipped to handle the predators that could all but blend into the shadows.
Just his blasted luck that he found himself too far out to make it home before the sun hid its face at last.
Ilyana let her hands brush restlessly against her arms, the hot skin cooled rapidly by the falling temperature in the cold air of earth.
She suppressed a shiver, refusing to show fear as she waited in her place for the small hunter to come find her. The plan was designed and set by her summoner, the human witch whose fate she’d tied herself to. Herself and so many other sprites in the hopes of eternal life at last, like the ungrateful water sprites who lived eternal simply because of their tie to water.
The meeting with the witch was prominent in Ilyana’s mind. Dipping into the scrying pool by the volcano, listening to Noonia’s plaintive cries as the world around Ilyana changed from hot fire and rock to the darkened interior of a human house.
The candles burning around the summoning circle did little to warm the air. Summoning her sisters had helped a little, but for now the others waited to stop the larger hunter, Dean, setting a trap for him upstairs while Ilyana waited for her Sam down.
She heard a metallic thunk behind her seat, over at the edge of the counter, and smiled. Soon, Sam would be hers and she could return to her fiery home triumphant. The hero of the fire sprites, bringer of eternity.
Timeline: Right after moving into 221B Baker Street
“Look out!”
Dean shoved Sam out of the way, his younger brother stumbling backwards from the unexpected danger. Moira yelped, grabbing Sam’s arm to haul him back, leaving Dean to face the threat on his own.
A cat.
Dean didn’t budge an inch, his silver knife in hand as he faced down the cat to give Sam and Moira time to escape. This was supposed to be a quick trip to grab some supplies, stock up Sam and Dean’s new home a few flats away from Moira’s family. They’d only had enough extra food for one meal, and having Moira’s help was welcome.
Of course, no one ever consulted them when getting a new pet, and not knowing that a cat now lived in the flat Moira’s family called home meant that they’d stumbled right into it.
“Mrow?”
It wasn’t quite the hiss of anger Dean had expected to hear before the deadly paw descended on him. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. He squinted his eyes open just as he realized he’d closed them as he prepared for the inevitable.
The cat still sat in the same spot, its tail swishing from side to side. Now that the element of surprise was gone, Dean could see it was only a kitten, nose twitching as it looked over the three tiny people it had cornered. Its head moved closer and Dean stiffened, expecting at any second to feel the crushing fangs close around his chest.
Instead, a wet nose pressed into Dean’s side. He jolted away in surprise, almost flailing off balance. The kitten blinked at him, then mrowwed again.
Stalemate.
Sam and Moira, standing against the wall, stared at the odd scene. Slowly, it all began to sink into Sam, and he snickered.
Dean sent him a wounded look over his shoulder.
“It wants you to pet it!” Sam called, almost doubling over with laughter.
Dean tore his gaze from Sam and looked back at the kitten just as a headbutt from the animal knocked him from his feet. He went sprawling, rolling a few times until he landed at Sam and Moira’s feet, staring up at them in a daze.
Moira joined Sam in laughing as they hauled Dean to his feet. “Go on!” she said, shoving him towards the kitten. “Pet her!”
Dean reached up a hesitant hand as the kitten cocked her head at him, ear flicking the moment his hand brushed against the fur. He scratched behind the ear like it was the most important task he’d ever performed, considering that if she wanted to, the kitten could turn the three of them into her playthings.
Nothing like that happened, aside from a rumbling purr from deep in the cat’s chest. She stretched out her front legs, each toe extending as she flopped down at Dean’s feet and looked up at him.
“I think you have a new best friend,” Sam said in a laughing attempt at a hush as he slipped past Dean, leading Moira towards the wall entrance they’d left behind.
“You’re not so bad, are ya?” Dean mused as he rubbed behind the ear again, thinking everything was going to work out fine.
Just as Sam and Moira made it to the wall, it happened.
“Ah– CHOO!”
Dean’s sneeze was so violent he was knocked off his feet, landing on his butt an inch away from a curious ear flick. The kitten picked up her head, nosing worriedly at Dean when the scritches didn’t resume. He barely noticed the large wet spot left on his leather jacket this time, too concerned with holding back another sneeze.
“ACHOO!”
Sam had to come back to grab Dean with Moira safely in the walls, hauling his older brother up and giving him a shove at the entrance while distracting the kitten with a scritch. Sam, who didn’t have any allergies to cats, did much better than his older brother, and escaped the moment the kitten’s eyes fluttered shut.
They parted ways with Moira at the fork in the path, her returning to her home with her parents while Sam propelled Dean towards their new home in the hopes that dunking his head in water might help the sneezes.
Otherwise, they might lose their ninja titles.
All through the walls, Dean sneezed.
Passing a kitchen with wonderful aromas wafting through the walls. “Ah-choo!”
Hearing a toilet flush. “Ah– ACHOO!”
Sam let out a sigh as they finally got home, hurrying to their water supplies while Dean morosely picked at a long, ginger-colored hair that clung to him even after leaving the kitten behind.
“Ah– CHOO! ”
The humans living in the flat were usually more observant than most. They were also quite busy and happened to be lost in their own worlds.
Sherlock Holmes was wrapped up in an experiment, subjecting disembodied fingers– specifically the fingernails– to the flame of a blowtorch at gradually lengthened intervals. It was a relatively quiet experiment, but the smell of it had John Watson slamming the sliding kitchen doors shut to keep the odor out of the main room.
John sat at the small table against the wall in the middle of the living room, typing away at his blog. Sherlock’s most recent case had been a convoluted one, and he wanted to be sure to get the details right. Or at least to a point where they made sense to the layman.
A muffled sneeze briefly broke his concentration.
“Gesundheit,” John muttered, under the assumption that the fingernail-fumes were finally starting to get to Sherlock. For his part, the detective hadn’t even heard the small noise from the kitchen, and so he and the doctor remained blissfully ignorant of the smaller residents of 221B Baker Street as the brothers stared at each other in shock, the human’s response to Dean’s sneeze completely unexpected.
Before Dean could sneeze again, Sam dunked his head into the cap of water. Dean resurfaced, gasping and wiping at his eyes before burying his head in the nest of fabric he called a bed. A muffled sneeze could be heard as Dean slumped in place.
“No more cats,” Sam said grimly, wondering at their close call with Sherlock and John.
Ooomg you’re so sweet! ;o; Thank you so much for the kind words!
The prompt is Hands from this list, with Jacob and Bowman. I really enjoyed doing this one. I’ll be working on more prompts that I didn’t get done in the last couple batches (hopefully) as well as any new ones that have come in for the 100 GT themes!
This is Fairy Tales canon, probably the spring after Jacob and Bowman first met.
Approx. Reading time: ~5 minutes
The sky above Jacob’s clearing had been a murky grey all morning. The springtime brought with it new, vibrant green leaves to form a brand new canopy over the forest of Wellwood, and that green crown formed a ring around the steel grey overhead. Jacob had made the trip hoping for more sun, since it meant his small friend would have more energy to be out and about.
That hadn’t stopped Bowman. They’d met at the clearing as they usually did. Bowman had made it part of his routine to check the clearing every day just in case Jacob popped in for another visit to the forest. He didn’t live nearby, and so it was never certain when he would have the chance.
Rolling his shoulders, he closed his eyes and focused.
Sometimes, it was harder than it should be. He’d spent so long on the mortal plane that actually using his wings was a rusty skill that needed a good oiling.
Like today.
A little jump was all it would take, and he could go and see what was going on. Find some new friends to mess around with. It was all good-natured fun, more than Michael had ever seen. Lucy was always more fun to play games with, but these days he was more of a stick-in-the-mud than Michael ever had been. He could only hope that his older brother stayed stuck, keep them from ripping each other’s throats out like they hoped.
A flex of muscles he hadn’t used in years, and Gabriel was in flight.
Teleportation, the angelic kind, was always such a brief sensation. But when he opened up his senses, and felt the aether around him, he could see so much more than when he was simply human.
A brief tingle came, and he turned his attention to one corner of a forgettable Midwestern state in the US of A. Two brothers, and they didn’t fit the regular pattern at all.
Gabriel smiled, and let himself land not far from where one of their friends was. He flickered into view and was spotted by an aging gentleman, a simple problem solved by a wave of his hand as the man was persuaded to ‘forget’ he’d ever been there.
It was time for a little game with these brothers’ and their friends.
Sam threw out his arms, but he was too late to catch his balance after the table shook.
John and Bobby didn’t notice, too caught up in their argument about chasing down the witch again, and the tiny ten year old tipped backwards from the table, his footing lost.
The freefall only lasted seconds.
Dean shouted in surprise, the powerful sound echoing around Sam’s delicate ears. The teenager launched himself, hitting the ground and sliding under Sam’s falling body to catch him between two gentle hands.
Sam hit the plush ground with an uff, and he rolled to his stomach, briefly freezing up as the hands closed around him.
This only lasted the moments it took Dean to stand back up, cradling his little brother like he was the most precious gem in the world and glaring at Bobby and John, who’d stopped their argument the moment Dean had thrown himself into the air.
“We’re going out,” Dean announced angrily, stalking from the room with his little brother and ignoring the protests behind him.
Oh, I like this idea! If anyone wants to, send us in a scenario and the characters. As always with prompts, if we can come up with anything, we’ll write and post it for everyone to see! A bit of character swap to go around.
I like this idea, so I’m going to add it to our list of future stories to write, and we can work on finding an AU to fit it into. It’s worth more than just a short little prompt, I’d say.
There was a story much like this submitted to the contest, if anyone wants to check it out, only there was only one little instead of a community:
(( Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get anything done since work is exhausting this week, but I managed to come up with this drabble. For @chewbaccaaah, I hope you feel better! Placed directly after Music, and directly before Movie Night. Enjoy! ))
Sam leaned against the wall of the small entrance that lead to Dean’s room. The sight of the dust was familiar and didn’t bother him in the way it caked his boots. He was far more focused on what he could hear.
Inside the room, Dean had settled down at the table after moving around some, tossing what sounded like clothing into a pile. It wasn’t surprising, they’d been there for almost a month now. Dean would have to make a trip to the local laundromat if he wanted to wash the reek out of his clothes.
Sam suspected why Dean was putting it off so long, and it all tied into Sam. Just a month ago, he was taken from his brother. Treated like nothing more than a toy, his arm snapped for speaking up against his captors, Sam’s harrowing experience had only ended with Dean’s timely intervention with Kara.
Only a month had passed. Sam’s arm remained broken, but healing, and Dean’s fear of losing his little brother again was foremost in his mind. He’d barely stirred from the room more than the occasional trip to the bar to try and relax. All trips had been unsuccessful so far.
Sam took a deep breath, and stepped out of the walls.
He wasn’t trying to avoid Dean. He knew that his older brother wanted nothing more than to protect him and everyone else that lived under the floorboards of his claimed room (the motel staff would need to pry Dean out of the room if his money ran out before Sam was recovered). They were his family, and it didn’t matter that they all could fit in the palm of his hand. They were his and that was all that was important.
The trip to the end of the bed went quickly. Sam stayed under the edge of the covers all the way until he reached the end, then hesitantly peered out to see where Dean was and what he was doing now. Brother or not, he was still the size of a building and Sam couldn’t risk relaxing his guard if Dean didn’t know where he was.
Dean remained at the table, his bacon cheeseburger next to his relaxed arm. Sam’s brow furrowed at the sight of the huge burger only half-eaten. Normally Dean would inhale a sandwich that size, and if Sam’s food was something he liked, he might be nudging Sam to see if he could get any of the leftovers. It saddened Sam to see for himself the effect his absence was having on his older brother. Dean deserved better after everything he’d done for them.
Not far from the burger, Sam recognized the plastic top of a fast food salad. Nothing fancy, but clearly waiting for someone to claim. Dean never ate a salad on his own, and only finished Sam’s because, as he bitched, “Can’t let food go to waste, Sammy. Rabbit food or not.”
They were raised in almost completely different worlds, yet some things remained the same in both brothers. Lessons learned, hard truths realized.
Sam stepped out into the open, and felt Dean’s eyes lock onto him a second later. Ever the hunter, Dean was in tune with his surroundings enough to spot the small movement on the floor close by.
Sam met Dean’s surprised look with a steady, trusting one of his own. Just Dean, his mind reminded him. His broken arm twinged.
“S-Sammy,” Dean stuttered, sitting up straight and glancing around the tabletop. He clearly hadn’t expected any company, despite the salad he’d brought. “You, ah, I mean…”
“Dean,” Sam cut him off, his voice warm as he saw Dean trying to clean up a pile of messy napkins shoved to the side. Dean paused, blinking slowly. “I heard you got me a salad,” he said as he took another step forward.
“Yes!” Dean winced as he saw Sam flinch at the volume. “Yes,” he said at a much softer level. “I didn’t… I thought I heard you in the vents earlier. I just wanted you to know you’re… always welcome to stop in. Even just for a minute.”
Sam’s lips twisted into a frown at the sound of the loneliness in Dean’s voice. He gestured with a hand for Dean’s help, and saw the small smile that formed on Dean’s face. A huge hand lowered down next to Sam and he stepped on, ruthlessly suppressing any desire to flinch at Dean’s size.
Before Dean could place him on the table next to the salad, Sam waved for him to stop. Dean froze, his hand only a foot from his face.
“Dean,” Sam said, meeting him right in the eye. Those green eyes the size of Sam’s head that he could feel on him just like any other humans. “I’m sorry I haven’t come out much. I didn’t realize how long it’s been. Mostly Walt insists I take it easy and rest, so the days kinda blend together, y’know?” He tapered off, thinking hard about how he wanted to put it. “I don’t think I can come stay in here yet, at least not until my arm’s better, but… you think you’re up for a movie night? Kara’s never seen any movies, and Sean… he probably misses TV.”
The growing smile on Dean’s face let Sam knew he’d picked the best plan. Dean loved kids, and this would give him a chance to see Kara after helping take care of her before rescuing her dad, and it would be the first time he’d seen Sean since rescuing him.
“Sounds like a plan,” Dean agreed happily, some semblance of his regular attitude restored. “Up for some salad first or should we get the others?”
Sam grinned back. “I’ll get some salad if you don’t mind.”
Watching Dean dive back into his burger with his enthusiasm back full force, Sam wondered why he hadn’t visited sooner.
Brothers Apart 