A/N:
**Please see Chapter 1 for all warnings!** Don't like it? Don't read it!
Thank you goldacharmed, Owllover333 and Christine for the great reviews!
My friends will give up on me.
For Jacob, trapped in Dean's mouth and on the brink of his life ending, the thought of his best friends giving up on finding him was akin to having an icy dagger shoved into his heart and twisted.
My friends will give up on me.
More tears sprang forth to mix with the foul liquids already covering his face as his imagination showed him how it would be once he was swallowed down. While he died in slow agony, no one would know. Their lives would simply continue on, going about their business while he vanished into Dean, lost mere hours after they set out to find out what had caused him to shrink. They would search for a while before they were forced to accept he was gone.
My friends will give up on me.
The thought lit the tiniest spark of desperation in him as it repeated over and over, more frantic with every second that passed in the hot, humid dark. He struggled more despite the inevitable slope of the throat somewhere right in front of him, beyond his sight but filling his thoughts with terror. It almost felt like it was gaping open, eager for him to tumble down at last after being denied so long
In the back of his mind, he could still hear that terrifying Mmmmm of enjoyment and feel it humming all around him. The sound Dean had made while he savored the flavor that coated Jacob, soaked him to the bone. No way to separate out the difference between 'friend' and 'drink.'
Surely the throat was right there and Dean would send Jacob on his way any second, eagerly consuming what he thought was a leftover bite from dinner.
Jacob kicked and struggled anyway, trying to move away from the open abyss towards the front of the mouth. His heart quailed and a choked noise of fear echoed out of his chest. Trying to push himself backwards with the heels of his hands only resulted in his palms sliding uselessly against the muscle beneath him. Against the thing that would send him to his death on reflex.
Everything around him, his entire environment, was designed towards forcing him mindlessly off that cliff no matter how he struggled. Dean would be the architect of his demise, and he'd never even know. In fact, if Dean hadn't been intent on savoring the brew while he watched the movie, Jacob would already have been consigned to the depths long ago. Just a forgotten lump, traveling inexorably down Dean's throat, unable to even struggle.
No one would give his death a second thought. Dean would probably be taking another drink before Jacob even reached his destination, more cool, refreshing liquid washing down the gullet to hurry him on his way down. Jacob would be nothing more than a memory and an unexpected, inconsequential addition to Dean's meal. The stomach wouldn't care that it was one of Dean's best friends in there. It would simply do its job, breaking down the meal to nourish the hunter.
Panic was Jacob's only companion, the only thing keeping him moving. Jacob's limbs were spent, his body exhausted. He could hardly make any progress splashing in what little beer hadn't trickled down into Dean's stomach yet. He could feel and hear Dean's pulse all around him. You're next you're next seemed to accompany the rhythm, and Jacob knew it was true.
But he kept up his feeble attempts to avoid the inevitable.
Dean frowned, concentrating on the tiny bit of… something on his tongue. His brow pinched with confusion. Now that he paid some attention, he realized that it didn't taste like anything he'd eaten that night … and it was bigger than he'd expect for it to go unnoticed for so long, definitely too big to simply have been stuck in his teeth.
Then he realized something and it felt like the world started to crash down.
It was moving.
A sense of dread filled him, starting with a clenching in his stomach that bloomed outwards and jabbed ice into his heart and set his pulse pounding in his ears. Reflexively, he pinned the weakly wriggling thing to the roof of his mouth when he swallowed down the rest of his beer in shock. His eyes snapped over to where everyone else was sitting and he could feel his insides freeze up, even more jagged claws digging their way into his chest at the horrible realization of what - or, rather, who - was in his mouth.
Sam was still diligently recording what they knew in his little journal, leaning over it in the way one did to minimize distraction despite the movie blaring in the background. He kept that book with him at all times, jotting down useful information. Bowman sat with his bottlecap forgotten in his hands, staring at the TV screen with a confused fascination that often adorned his face when he was witnessing what he proclaimed to be "human magic." Those leafy wings twitched a little. And Jacob ...
Jacob was nowhere to be seen.
Sam and Bowman glanced over as Dean had to hold back a gag, bile rising in his throat at the realization of just what was trying so desperately to escape his tongue at that moment. Weak, tiny motions, a frail body trying to twist out from his compressed position while little limbs aimed fruitlessly to pull himself free. He was barely able to move while Dean was holding him in place. It almost tickled. The foul and horrifying sensation was so feeble it was hardly there, and yet there was nothing else in the world more noticeable to Dean in that moment.
He ducked his head and slapped a hand over his mouth, trying his best to release Jacob from the roof of his mouth with care and spit him out gently, but with Jacob so small, that was an impossibility for the largest hunter. Sam was already jumping to his feet when he saw the panic building in Dean's eyes. He didn't need to ask to know that something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.
Dean moved his hand hastily out from under his mouth, blinking back watery eyes as he saw the tiny, saliva drenched, hoodie-clad figure curled up in the creviced valleys of his skin. Jacob looked so vulnerable there, outsized by each and every one of Dean's wrinkles.
No, no, no… his mind could only repeat the one word over and over and over as his shaking hand held the tiny guy near his eyes, trying to see if he was even still aliveafter being trapped in Dean's mouth for who knew how long. "Jacob…" he whispered desperately. "Please…"
No, no, no, no… His stomach curdled at the sight of the unresponsive, still body, roiling in the uncertainty even as Sam hopped over to the bed in a deft motion without even breaking stride, already afraid of what he'd find waiting for him in Dean's hand
Please, God, no… To Dean, it suddenly didn't matter that he didn't believe in God or angels.
He just wanted to see Jacob move.
I'm ... out?
Jacob's mind had to play a terrifying game of catch up. One second he struggled and squirmed uselessly. He tried to scramble backwards on a slick tongue that was prepared to send him plummeting with a sip of beer to a place from which they wouldn't return. The next second, he rushed upward and had all concept of breath knocked out of him when the tongue slammed him into the hard roof of Dean's mouth.
A sharp pain in his center indicated a bruised rib, at the very least. His body was already in so much pain, it was difficult for Jacob to tell anymore what was broken and what wasn't. He might as well have no bones at all for all the good they did him fighting this. Jacob's shallow, restricted breathing was rough and ragged as he awaited the inevitable.
When the beer around him suddenly vanished in one massive, noisy gulp, Jacob renewed his terrified struggles. He writhed as much as he could and pushed against the hard surface above, but his hands only slid away, utterly useless against his entrapment. The feeling made him shudder with continued terror and disgust.
What is he doing? God, no no no it's happening, this is it. I'm going to die and no one will ever know...
He could hardly move in his weakened state but he scrabbled against the hard, slippery ceiling he was pinned to the best he could, squirming and twisting though there was no use fighting. Jacob was merely an afterthought, to be gulped down after the beer and forgotten among the rest of Dean's unremarkable dinner.
The pulse around him was even more obvious now that he was so compressed, with his face forced to angle to the side to avoid smothering himself. You're next you're next you're next.
And then, accompanied by strangled sounds echoing up from the throat that was waiting on him, his world lurched in one fluid, terrifying motion, tilting effortlessly and taking Jacob with it. Sensations that he'd thought lost to him for good assaulted him from all directions.
Light.
Air.
Falling.
Jacob fell past teeth, barely acknowledging the pain of hitting them. He fell past lips, the very same ones that had mistaken him for more beer and happily drawn him into the maw they guarded.
And then Jacob was free.
After crumpling onto the giant hand with barely an audible "oof!" Jacob lay there for what seemed like an age, his body frozen from going into shock. For a moment, he simply shook, his skin crawling from the feeling of his clothes practically glued to him by none other than saliva. It coated him so thickly that he felt the weight of it. And then, in an instant, the reality and true horror of what just happened came back to him and he sucked in a ragged, desperate breath of clean air that almost felt freezing after the sauna-like conditions in Dean's mouth. He sputtered, amazed that he was actually breathing fresh air again after what felt like an eternity without it.
Jacob convulsed and rolled over onto his back still greedily gaping for air, his muscles spasming from the continued surges of adrenaline that had been his normal for the eternity since he'd inadvertently fallen into Dean's beer. Panicked eyes shot open only to squeeze shut again. The room temperature air stung them harshly and it elicited a hiss of pain from him. His core hurt, his arms hurt, his legs hurt, his head hurt ... Jacob's list of what wasn't injured was dwindling fast thanks to the long entrapment in his friend's mouth.
He lurched to the side again with jerky motions and pained muscles. This time he curled into the tightest ball he could manage to protect the growing bruise on his front. To protect himself from everything as cool air chilled him and made him shiver more than he already was. His hair was drenched and mussed hopelessly. His clothes stuck to his skin greedily, soaked through with spit and beer, viscous liquids heavier than water that coated his entire body.
There was no escape from what it meant.
Jacob had almost been eaten. Swallowed away like little more than the tiniest and most forgettable snack.
He squinted his eyes open and saw an expansive face before him. Freckles dusted a nose and cheeks that were bare inches away. Eyebrows were pinched close together over two green eyes that held Jacob in their focus, pupils dilated with fear as they beheld him. He couldn't see it below the level of the hand he was collapsed on, but Jacob knew with a panicked assurance that the mouth he'd been a prisoner of was waiting there.
Waiting there, ready to take in another drink of beer, another french fry ... Jacob. With a terrified grimace, Jacob bunched up his shoulders and moved one perpetually shaking hand to cover his face while the other arm remained curled protectively around his ribs. Please don't, he begged silently, his voice gone. Tears squeezed unnoticed from his eyes. Please don't eat me.
Rational thought had vanished. Jacob's usually cheerful, unflappable demeanor was shattered into a million pieces and he barely registered whose face he was looking at. All his brain wanted to dwell on at the moment was the fact that he'd just escaped an enormous mouth, and that mouth lingered nearby, waiting. If Jacob had any strength in him to scramble back, to do something more than cower and stay curled up, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Don't eat me! Explaining to him that it was a mistake, only an accident, would fall on deaf ears as his instincts wailed in alarm and assessed the damage done.
Don't ... don't eat me...
A/N:
^An overactive imagination is a bitch to have when you're nearly eated^
Next: November 5th, 2017 at 9pm.
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