A/N: Sorry for the delay... again. I have no excuse. But, I did work on it a lot and plotted out the rest of the story. I hope you enjoy this next chapter. :)

Chapter 4: Big Brothers and Their Little Siblings

"So, the beer did this to me?" Sam asks. Right now he's sitting on the edge of a cookbook, looking up at Dean.

Dean shakes his head, absently looking around the kitchen. "No." The beer was the first thing Dean had suspected to shrink his brother. "I tested it out."

"On what? Or who?" Sam wonders.

"Well, I tried it on a plant first, but when nothing happened I figured it only worked on people."

"So, did you try it…?" Sam hesitates, because he doesn't think that his brother would try it out on himself, and even if Dean did try it, then why wasn't he also tiny?

"No. Remember that jerk in the room next door that almost hit the Impala with his car door?"

Sam nods remembering the argument all too well. The guy told Dean that the Impala was a piece of junk, which sent a fury of rage run through Dean. If Sam hadn't stepped in between them when he did, he was sure that Dean would have decked the guy.

"Well, he got a knock on his door with a complimentary beer from the motel." Dean sighs, looking at the table top. "Too bad it didn't shrink him."

"Yeah, too bad it only worked on your brother," Sam says sarcastically.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you're shrunk in the first place," Dean argues in his defense.

"No, but it doesn't seem like you've been doing much research-"

"Not doing much?" Dean repeats as his eyes start to narrow. "What do you think I've been doing, Sam?"

"I know you said that earlier, but come on, Dean. Ever since I woke up this morning you haven't done anything. You haven't even called Bobby!" And as soon as the words leave his mouth, Sam regrets saying anything.

"Are you kidding me? In case you haven't noticed I've been a little busy here, Sam. And for your information, I WAS going to call Bobby after I filled you in on what really happened, but Ryan called us up for help before I even got the chance."

"Sorry," Sam mutters.

"Whatever," Dean says, looking away from Sam. He knows that Sam doesn't remember the way he treated Dean all week, but deep down Dean has a feeling that it's not far off from what Sam really thinks about him. The way Sam grumbled at Dean for being careless as he casually "left the warehouse" where people could see his giant form. Or the way Sam would complain that Dean crushed a car because he wasn't watching where he was stepping. After that incident Dean made sure that there was no trash on the floor ever again. But, when Sam mistook a fly for a bird, that was the last straw and Dean couldn't take it anymore.

*~*~*~*SN*~*~*~*

Dean had been sitting at the table, looking up research on Sam's laptop. He was still trying to find a cure for his brother, but he was getting distracted. Between Sam's laughter and the annoying buzzing that rang in his ears he couldn't focus. In fact he probably re-read the page he was on about five times already and he still wasn't sure what he just read.

Dean swatted the little nuisance and glared at Sam. "It's not funny."

"A bird circling your gigantic head isn't funny?"

"Shut up," Dean mumbled to both Sam and the 'bird'.

"It probably wants to make a nest in your hair." Sam laughed again when the little critter hovered in front of Dean's nose.

Dean twitched his nose and watched the little fly finally buzz away. He smirked, thinking his troubles were over, but the silence didn't last very long. The bug was now circling the laptop and his hands. Things got worse when it started landing on Dean's hands causing him to itch, distracting him even more from his research.

"That. Is IT!" Dean growled, closing the laptop shut. He snatched up an old book and held it up. Dean kept his eye on the little bug, timing his attack just right and smashed the thick book down on top of the annoying insect. He smirked in satisfaction when the buzzing ceased, but the smirk was quickly wiped away when he heard his brother yelling at him.

"Dean, what the hell?!" Sam yelled at his brother, but Dean didn't say anything. "I can't believe you just did that! It was just a little bird!"

Dean ran his hands down his face in frustration. "It wasn't a bird! It was a bug!"

"Dean, quiet down! Somebody is going to hear you!" Sam reprimands him.

"No, they won't!" Dean argues back. "And you want to know why? Because I'm not a giant, Sam. Okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked, completely confused.

"This," Dean said, pointing to the dead insect, "is not a bird. It's a house fly. Which means I didn't grow, but you shrunk."

Sam sighed and folded his arms. "Dean, that doesn't make sense. I watched you grow right in front of me. I know what I saw. And besides that, everything else is proportionate to my size. Not yours."

"Oh really?" Dean snatched the remote for the TV off of the dresser and held it right in front of Sam. "Then what do you think this is?"

"Are you serious?" Sam asked incredulously, but when Dean just stared at him, waiting for a response Sam finally answered him. "It's a vending machine."

"Vending machine," Dean repeated. He bit his lip and shook his head. Then, he took off the back of the remote, pulled out the batteries and slammed them down in front of Sam. "Then what are these?"

Sam jumped a little and took a step back when Dean slammed his hand down. He looked at the two objects and then back up to Dean. He really couldn't believe Dean was putting him through this, and it was clear by the look on Sam's face. Sam sighed, "Those are bottles of soda."

Dean looked at the batteries and then at his brother again. "Seriously? Dude, they're like half your size!"

"What do you want me to say, Dean?" Sam said, throwing his arms out to his sides. "I'm telling you the truth!"

"NO! You aren't! You think you know everything, but you don't."

"Wait. You are telling me that I don't know everything? Dean, you are the one who just killed a bird because you thought it was a fly. And, now you're trying to tell me that I shrunk?"

Without saying anything else, Dean got up and snatched his coat off of the back of his chair.

"Dean, where are you going? You shouldn't wander off too far, somebody might see you!"

Dean slammed the door shut behind him, smirking a little in self satisfaction, knowing how much that irritated Sam. The vibrations alone probably knocked the little guy over. And right then he was most likely ranting about how Dean was drawing more attention to himself. Dean didn't care anymore about Sam's delusional world, and that was when he decided to start telling Sam the truth about what really happened. Although, it didn't do much good since Sam believed nothing was wrong with him and that Dean was the giant freak.

*~*~*~*SN*~*~*~*

As painful as that memory is, Dean can't help but smile just a little at how cute it was to see Sam laugh. And the fact that Sam mistook a fly for a bird made it that much cuter. But he would never admit that to Sam.

Dean looks down at his tiny brother and sighs. He sets his hand down next to Sam with his palm facing upwards. "Come on. We should see how the kids are getting along."

Sam doesn't say anything as he climbs on and takes a seat, hoping that Dean won't put him back in the stuffy pocket again. When his brother brings his hand closer to his chest and starts to walk, Sam relaxes.

Meanwhile; upstairs in Ryan's bedroom he is currently trying to get his sister to talk to him. "Shay, please just talk to me." He leans down and peers in through one of the little windows of the dollhouse. Through the window he can see his sister sitting on the floor between the bed and the window. She had moved there to hide from him when he had come back into his room.

"Go. Away," she says sounding annoyed. Ryan's face had blocked what little light was coming in through the window, and seeing only his one eye and being covered by said eye's shadow was making Shayla feel uneasy. It makes her feel like she is underneath a microscope.

"Why?" Ryan simply asks, trying to get her to talk more even though he could probably guess why.

"Because I asked you to."

"You didn't ask me anything, actually. You did tell me to go away, but you never asked." Ryan smirked when he saw her finally glare at him.

"If I ask you nicely will you go away then?"

"No, because now I would know it was forced." He watches as Shayla groans as she leans her head back, slamming it up against the wall.

"I can't believe you put me in Mom's old dollhouse," she says, looking around at the old furniture that's slightly bigger to her, proportionately.

Ryan pats the roof of the dollhouse lightly as he looks it over. "I thought it would be better than Timmy's old plastic castle with the dungeon." He looks back in at his sister. "He probably would have locked you up in there. I did you a favor. You should be thanking me."

Shayla scoffs. "Thanks Ryan. You're my hero," she deadpans.

"Hey, Mom would be happy that we're getting use out this old thing." Ryan's face softens as he sees his sister look away. He sighs again. "Look… Shayla if you want to… talk-"

"No." Ryan sees her quickly wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her black shirt. "I'm fine."

"Are you really?" He watches his little sister a moment longer, but before he can get an answer out of her, Ryan hears Dean knock on the door.

Dean looks at Ryan and can tell that he's upset. "Is this a bad time?" Dean glances down at Sam, who instinctively looks up at him, wondering the same thing.

"No. You can come in." Ryan pushes himself up and sits up against the side of his bed, watching the dollhouse.

"Something wrong?"

"No. Apparently, everything is fine," Ryan says, knowing full well that his sister heard him. She had been silent for so long, he just wished that she would talk to him or at least somebody else.

Dean nods and looks at Sam again before kneeling down and lowering Sam into the kitchen of the dollhouse. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go find Timmy and see if he's made his way through the maze yet." Dean gets up and leaves the room

As Dean carefully enters Shayla's room, he immediately watches where he's stepping. He doesn't know how or why, but Timmy seemed to get around fast for such a tiny kid. "Timmy?" Dean calls out without raising his voice too much.

"Over here!"

Dean looks to the source of the voice and realizes that Timmy's still in the maze. "Your still in there? I thought for sure you would have found your way out by… What are you looking at?" Dean asks a little worried, because at the moment Timmy is staring at an album cover very intently and occasionally tilting his head. When a smirk appears on Timmy's face, Dean quickly snatches the CD away to see what the young kid was looking at. Dean didn't look at any of the album covers when he was making the maze; he had just grabbed whatever was available. And, now he was worried that he just corrupted a kid that he had gotten to know well over the past week and felt somewhat responsible for.

"Who IS that?" Timmy asks almost breathlessly.

Dean sighs in relief when he sees there's nothing too explicit on the cover. Instead, there's some chick wearing a bikini and sunglasses that look like they were too big for her face. Even though she was wearing clothes, Dean still feels uncomfortable that Timmy saw this, especially with the way he was staring at her.

"Somebody that probably can't sing," Dean answers back.

"Who cares about singing?" Timmy looks at Dean confused. "Look at those legs!"

"Oh no…" Dean rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and murmurs, "What I have I done?"

"And did you see her-?!" Timmy's hand gestures were cut off as his entire body was suddenly surrounded by flesh as Dean quickly wraps his hand around the kid.

With his other hand, Dean sets the CD faced down on the dresser. No more bikini clad women for the shrimp, Dean thinks. Little pervert. Finally, he understands why Timmy didn't finish the maze. The kid was too busy gawking at the women on the album covers.

Dean unfolds his hand, looking at Timmy who looks like he's about to ramble on about how hot the chick was, so Dean starts to tilt his hand sideways. Right when Timmy starts to fall off, he catches the kid with his other hand. As soon as he lands on Dean's right hand, Dean tilts that hand and catches Timmy in his left. Dean continues to gently drop the kid from one hand to the other until he gets into Ryan's room.

The little ride was enough to shut Timmy up and get his mind on something else. Turns out the little guy loved the game Dean was playing with him and didn't want Dean to stop when he tried to set Timmy down in the dollhouse.

"Please?" he begs Dean. "That was so much fun!"

Dean rolls his eyes as he settles down in front of the open dollhouse. "Fine. But I'm not some carnival ride."

"Pshh, of course not! You're WAY cooler!" Timmy beams up at Dean.

"I should charge you admission."

"Sorry, but I have no money." Timmy smirks as he shows Dean his empty pockets.

"Oh no." It's Dean's turn to smirk now. "I meant that I should go into your room and find your wallet."

Ryan chuckles, "Good luck with that."

Dean bites his lip and looks over at Ryan. "He's got a savings account, right?"

"Yeah…?" Ryan wonders.

"Problem solved," Dean says, looking down at Timmy triumphantly.

"You can't get in there. You need a pin number, which you don't have!" Timmy folds his arms. "I'd like to see you try, though."

"Don't tempt me, kid." Dean tilts his hand sideways again, knocking Timmy over into the other hand. "You'd be surprised by what I can do." Now, Dean looks back inside the dollhouse where Sam's sitting in the living room with Shayla. The tiny girl is trembling as she nervously chews on her nails, but she doesn't seem scared. She looks more like she's anxious.

"Are you sure?" Shayla asks Sam.

"I'm positive. Trust me. Everything will fine." Sam looks up at his brother, who is confused and wondering what they were talking about. "Ready to go?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Dean looks over to Ryan. "Do you still need us for anything, otherwise we were gonna head back to the motel?"

"No," he responds, shaking his head. "We'll be fine. Thanks for dropping by."

Dean nods as he places Timmy down inside the attic of the dollhouse, while he holds his other hand out for Sam, who climbs on right away. They say their goodbyes and head out of the house with Sam back inside Dean's coat pocket again. Once they're in the car, Dean opens up his pocket and looks down at Sam.

"What was that all about with Shayla?"

Sam shrugs and shakes his tiny head. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Come on, it had to be something. The girl looked like she was ready to chew off her hand."

"I just told her something to make her feel better."

"Like what?" Dean wonders almost hesitantly.

Sam shrugs. "I told her you knew how to fix this, but we just needed a little time to get things ready."

"So… You lied to her?"

"What was I supposed to do, Dean? She wasn't going to come out from underneath that bed on her own. I had to tell her something."

Dean shakes his head in amazement. "Wow."

"What?" Sam asks, sounding annoyed.

"Nothing." Dean pulls out the keys from his pocket and sticks them inside the ignition.

"Dean, what's wrong? Are you pissed at me or something?"

Dean doesn't bother to answer, but he decides he will explain anyways. It isn't like Sam could really fight back. And the truth is that Dean is getting sick of hearing Sam's lies. "It's just funny how you will do whatever it takes to get the job done these days."

"And that's a bad thing?" Sam retorts back.

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If you're doing the right thing or not."

"And you don't think I am doing it for the right reasons? Dean, that's all I ever think about. People will listen to you better if you lie and tell them what they want to hear."

Dean scoffs at that. "Well, that's one way to make friends."

"I'm not trying to make friends, Dean. I'm just doing my job."

Dean gives a curt nod, but doesn't say anything. Instead, he starts up the engine, backs out of the driveway and heads back to the motel for the rest of the day. There are so many things that Dean wants to say back to Sam, but he bites his tongue just like he did all week. Not making friends, huh? I seem recall a certain demon that walks by your side like an obedient little dog. Dean shakes his head, keeping his thoughts to himself. He'd rather make friends with demons than civilians. Go figure. And Dean swears that if Ruby calls Sam back then Dean will drop everything to hunt her down.

Ever since Dean caught Sam on the phone, leaving Ruby that message, Dean pocketed Sam's phone. He doesn't know what exactly Sam needed from Ruby, but Dean wasn't about to let her give it to him. The way Sam seemed to have begged Ruby over the phone made him sick. His own brother sounded like a junky, begging his dealer for more of his fix. That would explain a lot, actually… Dean suddenly realizes and glances down at his pocket. What did she give you? He wonders for a moment, but looks back at the road ahead of him with a new profound determination. Doesn't matter. You won't be getting it ever again. Especially if I ever get my hands on that little black eyed piece of trash.

Dean drives in silence, completely ignoring his brother squirming from within his pocket as Dean thinks of the different ways he could slowly kill Ruby. Some of which he got to use on Alistair along with others he would have done if Alistair didn't break free. Dean's face forms a slight smirk as he imagines Ruby squirming in pain. One of these days, Bitch… one of these days.

Once Dean arrives at the motel he pulls out his cell phone and dials Bobby's number. As he waits for Bobby to answer the phone, he feels Sam still squirming around. Dean can tell that Sam wants to get out of there, but he doesn't let him. Partially because he knows that Sam doesn't like it, and partially because Dean wants him to realize just how small and helpless Sam really was. After all, Sam was the one who had belittled Dean on many occasions this past year and kept telling Dean that he could do things without his help.

"Any chance your callin' because Sam had a sudden growth spurt?" Bobby asks as he answers the phone call.

"No," Dean replies as he feels Sam start to climb towards the top of the pocket lip. Dean goes over to a chair at the table and sits down to explain what happened that morning.

"So, you're telling me that out of the blue Sam finally understands what's going on?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Dean sighs, feeling worn out from everything.

"That doesn't make sense. Even if this curse or spell or whatever did this to him made him hallucinate, why would it suddenly wear off?"

"I don't know, but it wore off of the Warren kids, too," Dean says referring to Timmy and Shayla.

"Then, whatever did this probably made them hallucinate for a reason."

"Why add in the whole shrinking thing then? For kicks?" Dean rubs his forehead and glances down at his pocket which is starting to flap open. Knowing what his brother was trying to do, Dean leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. He feels Sam slip back down to the bottom of the pocket from the sudden motion.

Bobby can sense Dean's aggravation over the phone and assures him, "I'm just a few hours away. When I get there we should scan those woods where the people went missing."

"I'm telling you, Sam and I didn't find anything that day he shrunk. We searched the area and came up with nothing."

"That's because you don't have my eyes."

Dean opens his mouth to speak, but Bobby beats him to it.

"Don't even think about it or else I'm going to figure out what happened to Sam and make sure it happens to you, too."

"I didn't say anything," Dean says in his defense.

"No, but I know what you were thinking. My eyes are just fine."

Dean nods his head, smiling. "How much longer did you say you were going to be?"

"About two, maybe three hours tops."

"Alright, I'll see you then." After saying goodbye, Dean closes his phone and looks down at his pocket. Sam's head is poking out and looking up at him. Without saying anything, Dean reaches his hand into his pocket and gently wraps his fingers around his brother's body, carefully pulling him out and setting Sam down on the table.

"What did Bobby say?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nothing helpful. He doesn't understand the shrinking and hallucinating thing, either."

"He's on his way here, then?" Sam watches Dean nod, but his big brother doesn't say anything else. After years of watching and living with his brother, Sam knows that Dean's still upset with him. "Dean… Do we need to talk about earlier?"

"Which time? The kitchen or the car?" Dean reminds Sam, who instantly starts to feel guilty. But before he can explain, Dean continues. "Besides, what's there to talk about?" Dean shrugs. "What's done is done. We had a disagreement and we move on."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Dean stands up and heads for the refrigerator in the small kitchenette. "Pizza ok for lunch?" he asks over his shoulder.

"That's fine." Sam looks around the room. He really does wish that things were easier between them like they used to be. But deep down he knows that there's no going back now.

"Good, because that's all we've got. Well, I think there was some chicken in there, but I think you had a hard time chewing on it the other night." Dean digs around the kitchenette for plates and silverware. He grabs a beer out and pops it open with the ring on his right hand, tossing the cap on the counter.

They eat their lunch in silence. Dean cuts up Sam one piece at time until the little guy is finally full. While he watches his brother carefully cut up the tiny pieces to a perfect size, Sam starts to notice how careful Dean's been, and how thoughtful he was to Sam's size. So when they're done eating and Dean's leaning back in his chair finishing off the beer that they shared, Sam feels the need to thank his brother.

"Dean…" Sam trails off, but when he sees Dean roll his eyes and is about to stop Sam from talking about the 'disagreement', he quickly says what he wants to say. "Thanks."

Dean pauses, holding the beer lower to look at his brother. "For what?"

"For helping me out this week. I know I was probably being hard on you, but I didn't know… I swear."

Dean looks at Sam, unsure of what to say. Again, a million things run through his mind. Some are good and some are, well, not so good. Sure, it was nice to hear that Sam was thankful, but Dean couldn't help but know that that was the real Sam. The only difference was that Sam didn't know what was real. But in the end Dean just gives a small nod and says, "Don't mention it," before he drinks more of his beer.

"Hey, Dean?"

"What now?" Dean groans after swallowing a mouthful of beer. "Honestly, Sam, I swear if you keep trying to get me to talk about my feelings, I'm going to start calling you Samantha and buy you some doll clothes. And none of them will be from a GI Joe."

"I wasn't going to," Sam chuckles a little before his face falls into a frown. "You wouldn't?"

With a smirk Dean says, "Why wouldn't I? Not like you can stop me." Dean gives Sam a wink as he takes another swig of his beer. He swallows the bitter liquid down. "What did you want?"

"How did you find out about Shayla and Timmy?"

"Well…" Dean begins.

*~*~*~*SN*~*~*~*

"Sammy? You okay?" Dean asked, ducking his head lower to get a better look at his brother. Sam just blinked and looked at him confused.

A little over half an hour had passed by since Sam had mysteriously shrank. Dean had carefully picked up a dazed Sam, treating him as if he was made of frail glass and would shatter with the slightest of pressure. The entire time between picking Sam up to setting him down on the table, Dean had cupped his left hand underneath the one that held his brother for further protection.

"I… think so," Sam slowly answered as he stared at his enormous looking brother.

One minute his brother was fine, drinking his beer and the next, Dean was watching Sam dwindle down right before his eyes. Wait a minute, Dean thought as he looked over to where his brother's beer was sitting on the table. Dean immediately stood up from his crouching position and picked up the bottle. He tried peering inside to see if there was any unusual scents or any color distortion, but right when he we was about to put the bottle under a better light there was a knock at the door.

Fearing that his brother would be spotted, Dean scrambled to find somewhere to hide him. Not finding anything else, Dean figured that the tissue box would be the best thing for now. Dean snagged the box off of the nightstand and went back over to his brother, where he set the box down on its side. "Get in," he ordered as he looked back up at the door when they both heard another knock. Once Sam climbed inside, Dean warned him before he righted the box.

Another more rapid knock sounded as Dean walked over to the door. "Alright, I'm coming!" he snapped as he unlocked the door and opened it, getting ready to pull out his gun. "What do you…? Ryan? How did you find us?"

"Your car," the kid pointed at the Impala as he tried to catch his breath. "I searched all around town, hoping I would find you..."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Shayla and Timmy… Actually, you probably won't believe me. But, I just feel like you would be the only person who would understand, and you were the last one with us, so I thought maybe… Um… Is your brother alright? I mean… nothing weird happened… right?"

Dean glanced behind him at the tissue box and looked back at Ryan. "What kind of weird are we talking about?"

Ryan stared at Dean, clearly looking uncomfortable. "Nevermind," he waves his hand, looking like he's about to give up. "Forget I said anything."

As Ryan was about to leave, Dean stopped him. "Ryan wait." Dean hesitated, wondering if he should tell the kid anything, but when he saw the lost look on Ryan's face he got his answer. "Show me what happened. I think I might be able to help."