A/N:

Thank you so much to Kajensen07 and beckini for the reviews!

Dean's eyes narrowed when he saw who it was.

Jacob.

The teenager from the attack was standing not far away. A tendril of suspicion filled Dean. Why was the kid so deep into the forest after an attack like that? He should be recovering at the hospital with his other friend. A quick scan revealed Chase to be MIA, so he must have stayed behind. Had Jacob tracked Dean into the forest? How else would he know where to find him?

"Funny finding you here," Dean growled out, holding his hands close to his chest. So long as the tiny winged girl was in his hands, he couldn't go for a gun; he was vulnerable to an attack, but he might be able to keep her out of harm's way. He took a step back from Jacob to gain himself distance and time to react. "I thought I told you to stay out of the woods until we catch this guy."

Jacob frowned. He hadn't expected the agent to make it this far into the woods so quickly. Normally he'd be sheepish about getting caught like this, but at the moment, he couldn't think about that. Other, more important things screamed for his attention.

He'd seen just a hint of green between the man's fingers before the hands closed.

Jacob closed the distance between them, unable to stop from bristling. As he got closer, he made a visible effort to relax his broad shoulders. He held up his hands briefly to show he carried no threats with him. He was cautious, but not aggressive.

Yet.

"What's in your hands?" he asked, not bothering to conceal the ice in his tone. He knew the answer and he didn't like it one bit.

In Dean's hands, a quiet voice muttered "Oh, dear," and Rischa pushed lightly against Dean's fingers. The sudden nerves and protective intent in the air from both humans made her nervous. She felt an echo of pain from Jacob and dearly hoped that Dean hadn't been the one to strike him. There was no way she'd be able to get out of Dean's hands on her own, and calling out wouldn't get them anywhere, either. If Jacob heard her trapped in there, he could get mad, if he wasn't already.

In the end, Rischa chose to wait and listen, and hoped she'd get a chance to explain things soon.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean snapped, bristling right back. Whoever this kid was, he had no intention of letting him close to the tiny girl. A brief flutter against the inside of his hands vied for his attention, but did nothing to shatter Dean's concentration on the possible threat in front of him.

"How did you get out here so fast?" Dean countered Jacob's question with his own, sidestepping around the teenager to keep him at bay. Jacob was slightly shorter than Dean, but built. Even without the tiny girl in his hands, Jacob could pose a threat to the hunter if he wanted to. "Are you working with Bobby?"

Jacob huffed impatiently, his eyes constantly dropping to the hands that he just knew confined a sprite. He couldn't hear them in there, and it made him worry they might be hurt. Or, they could be too scared of the guy who caught them to say anything.

That certainly ruled out Bowman.

"I'm not ... dude, if I was working with him I wouldn't let him just smack me with a piece of firewood," he said, too indignant to brush the question off. The bruise on his face twinged as if in agreement. "I just wanna know what you're really out here for if you're not looking for him. What're you hiding in your hands?"

"Once you tell me what you're doing out in the woods I'll letcha know," Dean snarked right back. "Or did you forget which of us is supposed to be out here investigating? If you interfere in an official investigation, I can have charges brought against you. Now, I don't want to do that to you, especially right after the attack, but if you don't explain what you're doing out here with the campgrounds closed, that's exactly what's going to happen when we get back." Dean filled the air with all the jargon he could from the FBI and the police, hoping it would be enough to intimidate Jacob into leaving.

Each time Jacob's eyes dropped to his hands, Dean bristled a little more, knowing he was all that stood between the teen discovering the tiny supernatural child he held.

Jacob faltered and released a slow sigh. "I came here to..." he trailed off, unable to bring himself to say it. It didn't feel right to admit he was out here to check on an entire village of innocent people that fit in his hands. Then again, there was someone trapped in the agent's hands as they spoke, and he had no way of knowing if they were hurt or not.

He had to do what he could to avoid anything worse happening to them, and keep the agent from capturing more in his hands. The sprites were small and innocent, and even their best fighters wouldn't be able to stop a trained human from capturing as many as he could carry.

Until he knew for sure what this 'Jimmy Page' was up to, Jacob opted to lie instead. "I thought I might be able to find my friend," he said begrudgingly. If he thought about it, it was almost the truth.

Indeed, not far away, one of his friends darted through a tuft of leaves. Bowman glanced back at Sam, worry lingering on his brow.

They had stopped at home for a break from their patrols only to find Candara and Larxe both fretting. Rischa had wandered off, and no one was really sure where she'd gone. Without waiting to see if a patrol would be set up, they'd both set out again with all the haste they could.

"She's always saying she wants to fly out with us," Bowman mumbled. "Maybe this time she just didn't want to wait."

"Don't worry, Bowman, we'll find her," Sam promised, angling his leaf glider around the branch Bowman had fluttered through. It was designed based on Bowman's leafy wings, and served Sam well on their patrols, but he couldn't dive through the leaves the same way Bowman could. His style of flying was the opposite of the sprite's, a patient glide whereas Bowman would flit from side to side.

None of this slowed down Sam's search. His hazel eyes examined the ground and trees meticulously as they passed them by, determined to find the little sister that had welcomed Sam into her life along with the rest of her family. Sam could remember a time when her little wings were nothing more than leaf buds on her back, and she'd squealed with delight as he'd given her piggybacks around the house.

A familiar shape came into view when they passed by more trees, and Sam brightened. "Maybe Jacob's seen her," he called over to Bowman, hope in his voice. The human was close to all of them, but Rischa especially had taken to the towering teenager. She always came to spend time with him when he visited, and Jacob was clearly enamoured with the tiny girl. None of the cheeky comments or playful nudges he might make to Bowman were present in his interactions with Rischa.

Then the other shape that was close to Jacob came into view, and Sam grew tense. "Another human!" he hissed in surprise, tilting his glider to angle towards Jacob and not the stranger.

Bowman saw him, too. A human slightly taller than Jacob, if not as broad. Both of the giants looked tense and ready to pounce at each other, like they were fighting over territory. Bowman frowned as he approached and nearly slowed his flight out of worry that the other human could be dangerous. The nasty bruising on Jacob's face covered an area Bowman's size, and that strange man was the only one close by that could do damage like that.

Then he saw the other human's hands, and the way that they were cupped close around something. His heart nearly bottomed out, and Bowman couldn't help but assume the worst.

At the stranger's feet, a few flowers were fading from the last glow infused by a Prayer.

Bowman hurtled forward, making a speedy circle around the two humans as he surveyed their positions. He saw Jacob glance up at him in surprise, but Bowman didn't spare the friendly human any attention. His focus was on those powerful and dangerous hands.

His plan was risky, but he had to take it. He dove suddenly, right towards the cupped hands, and landed on them in a crouch. Sam might be more effective at getting the hands open, with his sword and knife handy for threatening the human along with his extra strength, but his glider was nowhere near dextrous enough for such a landing. Sam would have no way of escaping the human's grasp if he took the same risk. Bowman ignored the startled "What the-!" from above.

"Birdie?" Bowman called.

"Bowman!" came a surprised reply, her voice muffled by the skin, bone and muscle walled between them.

Bowman turned his bright green glare straight up at her captor. "You let her out, now!" he demanded with all the authority he could muster.

Dean didn't flinch. Instead, it was almost a reflexive reaction to open his fingers enough to make the new sprite stumble, and seconds later he'd joined the little girl in Dean's hands.

It was starting to get crowded in there.

"Bowman!" Sam shouted as he banked around above Jacob's head. The glider went into a stoop, and he landed smoothly on their friendly human's head. Hairs as long as Sam was tall formed a nest around him. He wasn't worried about being swatted off; it wasn't the first time he'd used Jacob as a convenient perch. Taking a few steps forward, he gazed desperately at the hands that his adopted little brother had vanished into.

There was no doubt in his mind that the stranger now held both of his siblings.

"What the hell is going on around here?" Dean demanded, his eyes fixated on the third tiny person perched directly on Jacob's head. He couldn't fathom having an entire person standing on his head like that.

Bowman nearly panicked in the enclosed space, spreading his wings as far as they were allowed. Powerful, callused walls prevented him from stretching his wingspan all the way. Before he could string together a sentence made entirely of curses, Rischa squirmed her way around to hug him with the kind of desperation that demanded he pay her some attention. He couldn't see her face in their dim enclosure, but she sighed with relief when he looked at her.

"Bowman, it's Dean," she said simply, and it was all she needed to say for the rest of Bowman's worry to derail completely. Instead, he was merely shocked, and she sighed again, hugging him tightly to remind him that they were okay, and that he didn't have room to flail with fear.

"Blast it ... are you sure?" he asked her. She nodded against him.

While Bowman squirmed uncomfortably in the hands but otherwise calmed himself down, Jacob's own heart rate sped up and his eyes were a little wide, too. He didn't dare move too much lest he upset Sam's perch. He could feel the small boots shifting right on top of his head, a familiar sensation that he wasn't entirely used to yet, but was resigned to anyway.

He could see the agent's intense stare. Those keen green eyes were fixed on a spot just above his head. On Sam. Sam was speedy and dexterous, but Jacob knew he wasn't quick enough to escape the guy if he really wanted to catch him. Bowman hadn't even had time to try to hop away from his hands before he was trapped within them.

"Uh, not much, dude, except you're trapping people who don't deserve it!" Jacob answered, now staring almost exclusively at the cupped hands. He couldn't imagine there being much room for two sprites in there. Bowman's wings alone would be cramped at a weird angle.

Dean gave him an offended glare back. "I'm not hurting them!" he defended. "I just… Everything was going fine until you showed up!" he snapped, remembering that he'd been getting somewhere while talking to Rischa when Jacob came crashing through the forest. Tiny flutters in his cupped hands wouldn't let him forget how vulnerable both sprites were compared to him or any other human. Including Jacob or that Bobby. "I need to know what's going on in this forest. That's all."

Try as he might, he couldn't look away from the third small person that had appeared. This one didn't resemble the sprites aside from the clothes he was wearing. He had no wings, and used a glider to fly. Pale skin that matched Dean or Jacob was another sign that set him apart from the two in Dean's hands.

"And what's your story, pint-size?" Dean threw at the final person, who'd so far stayed out of the arguments.

Sam stared back, his insides frozen from a combination of the unrelenting stare locked on him and the sight of the stranger's hands solidly closed around the two sprites. There wasn't a single crack in those fingers for light or air. Bowman and Rischa would be cramped inside. "That's my family you have in your hands!" Sam replied stubbornly, wishing he had a way of actually using his rapier to help them. He was too small, and he knew his glider didn't have the maneuverability he'd need to escape if he tried any rash rescues like Bowman.

Jacob held up his hands again, exasperated and hoping the sprites currently captured wouldn't get hurt by accident. "It's true, okay?" He hardly knew what he should say to de-escalate things, but he had to try. "Listen, we can explain everything, but would you let them out?"

The squirming continued in Dean's hands, invisible to Jacob's eyes. Bowman and Rischa, held so close together, were practically sitting on each other's wings as they listened. Jacob didn't know who the human was at all. It was entirely up to Sam to figure out who held them, and hopefully before the humans gave up on circling each other and did something more active.

Yet it had been well over a decade since Sam had seen his older brother. Dean's face had faded from his memory, leaving only an impression of warm green eyes behind. The older man before them, intense and worried with lines on his face from years of hunting, bore little resemblance to that memory. Even his voice had deepened, and it was unlikely that Dean would ever equate the four inch man perched on Jacob's head to the little brother he'd helped raise.

Luckily for them all, looks weren't everything.

The year before Sam had been cursed, he'd confronted his older brother about what their dad did for a living. He'd forced Dean to tell him why they traveled from motel to motel, never staying in one place for very long. Almost never staying at the same school for an entire year.

After that confrontation, Sam had given Dean an amulet, one that was originally meant for their father.

Dean was always there for him, John wasn't.

Dean was the one with him in that motel room when the witch broke in. His defense of his little brother had come to a screeching halt when she'd slammed him against the wall with nothing more than a wave of her hand, putting him out of her way.

You'll never see your brother again… this time I'll make sure of it.

That voice taunted Sam again as he saw the amulet hanging from the huge stranger's neck, and suddenly their surroundings dropped away.

"Dean?" Sam rasped. It was too quiet for the massive man to overhear, though perhaps Jacob could make it out.

That didn't matter.

With a burst of speed, Sam leapt off of Jacob's head. Air filled the wings of the glider and he floated towards the human, intent green eyes following his every move.

Familiar green eyes.

"Dean, is that you?!"

A/N

Their paths have crossed at last!

Next: November 14th, 2018 at 9pm est

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