This cannot be happening. It – it just can't. It's beyond the weird their normal life contains. Sixteen year old Sam Winchester can feel the rising panic as his thoughts chase around looking for something logical to grab onto. Panic won't help, Sam knows that. Dean has drilled that into him ever since he was twelve and Dean starting letting him help on small jobs.
"What am I going to do?" Sam groans to himself, running his hands through his chestnut hair. "Okay, Sam. It'll be okay." He forces his thoughts to slow down, unwittingly channeling his older brother's usual words. "We can fix this."
When he gets his fear under control, Sam decides step one is getting his brother up and getting the hell out of this creepy old cemetery. Okay, that's two, but it's what needs to happen first. And before even the first thing, Sam has to hotwire the car or they aren't going anywhere.
Once they are in the car and Sam is driving them back to this month's cheap lodgings, he can think about what comes next. Or maybe Dean will wake up and be okay enough to help by then. Just – one step at a time. Like Dean taught him.
Driving, Sam finds is actually pretty soothing. He kind of gets why Dean likes it so much. It gives his hands and mind something to do, something to hold onto. "Keep it steady." Sam's channeling Dean again, remembering how his brother has been teaching him to drive in the past couple months since his sixteenth birthday. But thoughts of the twenty year old get Sam almost gasping for breath. Dad is going to be so pissed, and if Dean isn't able to intervene, Dad's going to unleash at Sam. He just knows it.
Sam wipes a stray tear from his cheek. "Stop it! We don't have time to worry about this. I'll get us to the motel and call Dad. Cause this. This is…." He fades off. It is inconceivable, his mind supplies.
. . . . . . . .
Dad had dumped them in a cabin that was about the size of a shed at the beginning of July and had taken off with some other hunters chasing a pack of spirit wolves in the badlands, and possibly a black dog driving the pack, since these were the larger gray wolves, not timber wolves, and wolves didn't venture this far out of the mountains usually.
Dean took a part-time job at a diner as a server to keep the boys fed, staying with Sam even though Sam knew that at twenty he probably would have wanted to go with the other hunters. Dean told Sam to act like any other snot nosed kid on summer vacation – sending him off to the pool and rec room when Dean was working. Sam appreciated it. He knew it was Dean's way of letting him be normal.
But as much as Dean loves Sam, Sam loves his older brother. And when Dean started getting restless, Sam looked over the information his brother was gathering about strange happenings near an abandoned cemetery two towns away, and the two boys thought they could handle a little salt and burn without their dad. Might have worked out fine if it really had been a restless spirit. Instead the brothers found themselves smack dab in the middle of a coven of witches.
Sam thinks they still might have gotten off scot-free if Dean would learn to stop openly antagonizing – well, just about everyone. It's like that's his brother's super-power, pissing off just about any one in no time flat.
"I don't know who you are boy – a hunter by the smell of you," the tall woman at the center of the circle had said. "But you need to stay out of our business. We have justice on our side. These people – they are getting back what they have dealt. You, boy, have no business being here or bringing this man-child with you."
Sam stammered out an apology and grabbed Dean's arm, trying to pull his brother away. They were outnumbered and unprepared. But would Dean just leave? No. He had to get lippy.
"Listen, Doll…" Dean started, but before he could say much else, Sam and Dean were both thrown up against the black rock of a cliff wall that stood at the end of the cemetery. Sam struggled, and watched Dean squirm against the force holding them in place. The woman came right up to them and they fell to the ground kneeling. She grabbed Dean's chin, forcing him to look up at her. She turned his head one way, then the other, studying him before she smirked.
"So young and so cocky." She jerks his head back further and studies his eyes. "You have a destiny that I cannot derail, but I think you need a lesson." The woman chuckles deeply. "I think you with your pretty, pretty eyes, lovely cheekbones, sweet freckles, and kissable lips look like a little doll. A tiny little strutting Ken doll pretending to be a G.I. Joe." She chucks him under his chin before releasing him and goes back to talk to her cohorts.
Sam's voice is still missing, but he manages to get his brother's attention. Dean can't move anything but his eyes, and Sam can tell his older brother is trying to reassure him. Sam wishes his brother understood that Sam isn't a little kid any more, and he is as worried about Dean as he is for himself. More, because he didn't piss off the scary witch.
The group started chanting, and Dean went stiff, falling over on his side. Sam watched as Dean's mouth opened in a silent scream before he went lax. Then Sam gasped and struggled harder as right before his eyes, Dean started to shrink, and shrink, until he lay there still – about the size of a fashion doll. Sam's restraints fall away and he crawls over to his brother, tears streaming from his eyes. When he turns around to confront the witches, he sees they are gone. It is just him and Dean.
Sam very gently eases his brother's tiny form into his hand, relieved that he can feel Dean's chest rising and falling. Dean's heart beats quickly like a bird's. Sam cradles his brother carefully as he carries him to the Impala, dumping the weapons on the back floorboard before shoving a towel inside before laying his brother inside and placing it on the front floorboard. Those chores done, Sam starts to panic again. How on earth is he going to explain this to his dad? How is Dean going to take it when he wakes up?
. . . . . . .
"Dad?" Sam has reached the cabin, placed the bag with his brother in it on the bed, and gathered change to go use the payphone near the office. "Dad, please. I need you to come back right away. Something happened to Dean. He alive, but…" The teenager's voice breaks and he struggles. "Dad I don't even have a phone to call you back. Please. Please, just come."
Hanging up, Sam makes his way back to the cabin. He carefully closes the door and sits on the bed next to the bag where Dean is still unconscious. Sam worries because he knows he should be checking pupil reaction and other symptoms of concussion, but Dean's so little and he could be injured so easily. He's tired, but he's afraid to go to sleep. What if Dean were to wake up? He moves the duffel with his brother onto his lap as he stretches out on the bed. All he knows to do now is wait and pray that his dad will be there soon.