A/N

Thank you stargazer100 and Christine for your great reviews! They always keep us going. Work is over with for a long weekend of playing Breath of the Wild! Aaa

Dean stood slowly, holding the hand with Sam and Jacob in it cupped against his chest for stability. He waited calmly, watching until Oscar had safely reached cover. After taking the small guy out of his realm of safety, Dean considered himself responsible for anything that happened to him until he was back to the walls. Those tiny strides were swift, but they wouldn't be able to get Oscar out of danger if something bigger came at him.

Once Oscar vanished from sight, Dean let out a sigh of relief. "Alright. Time to get to work." He lowered Sam and Jacob back down into the same pocket, letting them slip off his fingers.

With them safely concealed, he left the room behind and headed for the room next to the office. They'd have to do a sweep of the room, see if there was anything out of the ordinary, any EMF or ectoplasm around to point to a spirit lurking nearby. Anything in that storage room could be anchoring an unfriendly spirit to the area.

He nodded at a passerby as he walked back, his hand casually hovering over the pocket that contained the vulnerable Sam and Jacob. Even on a warm, peaceful day like today, the world was dangerous for them to be outside. Dean had taken on responsibility for them, too, months before.

Again he found himself outside by a door, glancing surreptitiously around while he picked the lock. For a moment, he wondered if he should teach Sam and Jacob how; it was one of the most useful skills in his arsenal. With their small size, they might be able to actually see the tumblers inside while they worked and do it faster than he ever could, regardless of his experience.

The door clicked open and he ducked inside, shutting it behind him with another soft click. Furniture was stacked everywhere, looming above even his head. He slipped his hand into his pocket, waiting for the other two to willingly put themselves in his grasp, an action that never failed to amaze him. He could feel exactly how fragile they were in the movement of small hands and nearly microscopic fingers as they climbed in and they did it without hesitation after only a month together.

Once he felt a small punch, he curled his fingers together and cautiously lifted them out. Like with Oscar, he wasted no time lowering them down to the ground and holding out his hand. "Don't go near anything that might fall over," Dean said grimly. If this thing could crush humans, someone the size of his hand wouldn't stand a chance.

While he and Sam hopped to the floor, Jacob raised his eyebrows and tilted his head back to stare at the stacks of furniture all around. The enormous, heavy things piled even higher than Dean's considerable height reminded Jacob vaguely of a trip to Chicago he'd taken when he was a kid, before he was cursed. Skyscrapers had stretched into the sky and loomed overhead just as much as that furniture did. The perspective played tricks on his eyes and he thought for a moment that the stacks leaned closer.

Or maybe it wasn't a trick of the light. Jacob eyed a stack of chairs that looked to have a dangerous tilt to it and his mouth twisted into a frown. "We'll do our best. Same goes for you, though. Someone's already been hurt in here once."

Even Dean wouldn't be able to do much but duck out of the way and hope nothing crashed into him if this stuff started to fall. It was mostly too heavy to just shove it out of the way and redirect it, especially if a spirit was calling the shots in here. When a vengeful spirit wanted something to happen hard enough, it tended to go exactly like they planned.

With his hands free, Dean was able to hold out his EMF reader to sweep the room while Sam and Jacob crept along the floor. It was like the room itself was holding its breath. Even without ghostly activity, it was so strange that someone thought it was a good idea to stack heavy things so high.

"These guys ever hear of a storage unit?" Jacob muttered, brushing his hand over some dust on a spare dresser.

"Tell me about it," Dean muttered. He kicked a boot curiously against the tower of chairs, taking note of how stable they were to see if it was possible the accident earlier was just that… an accident. They didn't even creak against each other. "At least they'd have more room in a storage unit. And an extra room to rent out for a night. I'm sure the motel fills up at least sometimes."

The EMF meter didn't make a sound as he held it over the different stacks of furniture throughout the room, keeping a steady watch on the floor all the while. Aside from having Sam and Jacob to watch out for, the motel had other people that lived inside the walls. He wouldn't want to drop his guard for a moment. A second of inattention would cost them too much, no matter how unlikely they were to come out into the open.

Sam followed along behind Jacob, keeping a sharp eye overhead. He was more concerned with the possibility of falling furniture than he was of Dean walking around. While Jacob examined the dresser, he watched for any possible topples.

The room offered up no clues to them for a while. The EMF remained silent, and the precarious stacks of furniture remained surprisingly stable even with Dean walking around in the room. His footsteps, which Sam and Jacob could feel easily through the floor, hardly even disturbed the dust clinging to all the extra pieces.

They even found the cabinet that had fallen, stood back up with a dent on the side. Jacob cringed at the thought that it had actually fallen on a woman; at the very least, she was probably nursing broken legs now. Nothing about the tall metal block looked unsteady, but it didn't cause the EMF reader to squeal either.

Jacob was about to suggest that maybe this room wasn't related to their case after all. There were no signs of ectoplasm or anything that indicated a spirit in here. Only huge-ass stacks of furniture the motel should probably be throwing out anyway.

Then he felt a sudden chill up his spine and paused, looking around. Normally, a little cold was nothing new. At this reduced size, maintaining body heat was harder than it was for Dean. It was part of what made the pockets so comfortable to sleep in. But this chill ... there was something about it that Jacob didn't think he should ignore.

"You felt that, right?" he asked, looking to Sam.

The EMF reader didn't give him a breath to wait for an answer before it flared to life, its red lights glowing brightly. There was a telltale wobble in a bedframe leaned against the wall, before it tilted away from its position, with no warning other than the creak of cheap old metal.

"Whoa!"

Dean leapt to the side, barely sidestepping out of the way of the heavy furniture. Mere moments ago, it was as stable as anything in the room. Now, it slammed into the ground with a heavy metallic crash.

He hit the ground a foot away, going straight to a crouch. "Sam? Jacob?" he called out, the sawed-off already in hand as he glanced around the room. If he was going to risk shooting it, he'd need to know where they were. The scatter shot of the gun wouldn't kill Dean, but it would be more than enough to take out either of his small brothers.

"Thank god," he muttered when he spotted them over on the ground to the side, far enough away to escape the fall of the bedframe without a scratch. They were picking each other up off the ground, knocked down by the earthshaking fall.

Dean held out his gun, scanning for the ghost that was making the EMF meter buzz a warning screech.

Jacob could feel adrenaline picking up speed in his system. His limbs were already like springs, and he was prepared to bolt if he needed to. Even without the EMF meter and the chills alerting to the clear presence of a spirit, that bedframe falling was enough to have him on edge. The ground had practically bucked underneath him and Sam to knock them over. The impact could have broken Dean's legs easily.

Thankfully, he was crouched nearby, no more injured than he'd been before. At most, he was primed for another attempt on his life by the spirit as they all looked around. No apparitions became apparent.

Until Jacob glanced down. Instead of looking up at human height for a human sized ghost, his gaze flitted only momentarily to the archway into the bathroom alcove. He blinked several times to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

It was someone their size. Or, it seemed to be, until they flickered. "Guys, the ghost isn't a human," Jacob yelled, pointing at the spirit without looking to see if they'd already noticed. He was just in time for the ghost to scowl and disappear from sight, only to reappear near the stack of chairs.

The spirit looked to be a young woman no older than Dean, and of course stood under four inches tall. Her rage was as great as any human's could be, and the top chairs practically buzzed against each other as they shook from her influence.

She glared up at Dean. "See how you like it!"

"What the…" There was no time for questions or confusion at facing down a ghost the size of his pinkie. Dean dove forward, sweeping Sam and Jacob off the floor into one hand while he aimed his shotgun with the other. He needed them out of danger, out of the way of the wide range gunshots.

With a massive boom, the salt shot out of the barrel, scattering the air around the small ghost. She vanished with a shriek, the air around her warping with her dispersion. Dean heaved a sigh, adrenaline buzzing through his body at the close call. He said a silent thanks that it had gone for him and not the other two. They might not have been able to get out of the way in time.

He pulled his hand away from his stomach, accidentally sending the other two tumbling on the moving hand. "You two okay?" Dean lifted them up, green eyes meticulously checking them over to make sure he hadn't injured them in his quick movements.

Jacob pushed himself to a seated position on Dean's hand, his own arms shaky. He let the dizziness wear off before he tried to speak, lest stammer out nonsense after the rapid movements. He didn't recall ever moving so quickly in his life, and he certainly hadn't been smushed up against Dean's stomach before.

With the gunshot ringing in his ears, he gave Dean a thumbs up. "All good here. How's that for some target practice?" he quipped. He wasn't sure why, but he'd never considered that one of the smaller folk could leave behind a spirit. He shouldn't be surprised; they were people just the same as humans. The only difference was their size.

It was lucky they'd spotted her in time. Even if Dean managed to keep dodging the falling furniture, he could have been trapped in the room. The spirit could amass enough energy to start really throwing things around in an attempt to crush the human.

It painted a clear and melancholy picture of how the woman must have died. It was so easy for a human to overlook them. Someone could have knocked something over or put down their bag or even taken a wrong step and snuffed out an entire person. It wouldn't take much for a spirit to become angry about that and start exacting revenge.

It also explained why the motel itself didn't have many incidents. The spirit wouldn't be going after her family and friends. She'd make sure they were safe even while she attacked the humans that she thought had wronged her.

"I have a feeling we're gonna want to talk to Oscar again," Sam said as he pushed himself up next to Jacob. "He's lived here all his life, if anyone knows who'd died recently out of the people in the walls…"

"...It'll be him," Dean finished. "Guess it's a good thing we found him in the room, then." He scowled at the thought of an innocent girl being crushed to death… and being overlooked because of her size.

Now that she was dropping bodies, they'd have to take her out like any other spirit.

Sam nodded. "With any luck, he'll know where she was buried. If she was buried." There was always a chance that her body might not have been noticed, or it had been swept out like a rodent. He prayed that wasn't the case, because there would be almost no chance of finding her.

Jacob winced. It would be harsh enough to find out someone had been crushed by the carelessness of the humans around, but to have to figure out a way to dispose of the body? He realized he'd never thought of that since being cursed, and yet it was something he may have had to do someday.

"Hopefully he'll know," Jacob echoed with a nod. They needed to put that spirit to rest. She'd died alone and in pain and scared, and her spirit was reacting to it violently. Once they found what happened to her, she could move on and people would be safe from further attacks.

They made it back to the room quickly enough to regroup and to wait for Oscar. Since he would have to make the trip back on his own, they knew they had some time to kill, but the research was no longer of any use. They knew who had died but it was up to their small informant to get them along the next step in the case.

Oscar trudged through his passages in the wall a little over an hour later, his shoulders slumped and his heart heavy. He hadn't heard about Caroline's death until today, but when he heard about what had happened he'd been able to put the pieces together quickly.

One of the employees of the motel, moving furniture in that extra room, had shoved something out of the way without a second thought. Caroline, in the room looking for smaller dropped supplies, hadn't stood a chance and was injured by the moving structure. She'd barely managed to drag herself painfully back into a vent before she expired, and that was where her family found her.

Just like that, she was gone.

Oscar had known her for years. He didn't get many opportunities to speak with her, because of his distance across the motel, and now he never would. He'd left all the bread he collected in his bag with her family as a meager condolence for the loss, even though it had happened months ago. He was better late than never.

By the time he slipped out of the wall into the room where he knew the strangest three brothers he'd ever met would be waiting, he was looking downtrodden indeed. He hadn't bothered to avoid the dustier parts of the walls, and had some dust clinging to his clothes and hair. He brushed it off to delay greeting the others for a few seconds longer.

A/N

They need to get Dean away from the spirit, ASAP

Leave a review to let us know if you like it!

Next: March 5th at 9pm est.

Starting after this story comes to a close, posting will only occur on Sundays and Wednesdays at 9pm!