A/N:

**Please see Chapter 1 for all warnings!** Don't like it? Don't read it!

Thank you Christine, goldacharmed and Kajensen07 for the great reviews!


The human glared in at Sam and Bowman, trapped in the cage and glaring right back. "You best be worth a pretty penny for all this trouble," he growled out. He tossed a wallet on the counter next to them. Jacob's wallet.

Bowman's nerves wound up further. He hated having that selfish gaze on him, sizing him up. The man truly didn't see people when he looked at his captives. He saw his own gain. In his eyes, he could do whatever he wanted with them and it was okay because they couldn't offer him any resistance.

Bowman was going to prove him wrong, even if his resistance could only be verbal. He wouldn't just lie down and let this happen. Even if he got himself into trouble like he usually did when he mouthed off, he might be able to buy Sam even a second somewhere down the line.

The cage around them was bigger than the main room of Bowman's house, and quite tall. It left Bowman plenty of room to flare up his wings in his anger, almost an automatic reaction. The threat display worked on smaller mammals in the forest, making a sprite look too big to be worth the trouble. His bright green glare fixed on the face peering in and his hands curled into fists as he met that stare.

"Pray to a rock, you Sprit-scorned mushroom heap," Bowman spat. High cabinets, grubby counters, and a doorframe leading to another room formed the backdrop for the focus of his glare. "You think you've got trouble now, just you wait."

"Oh, don't worry," said the human in a voice dripping with scorn. He tapped against the cage, flicking the bars next to Bowman disdainfully. "I won't have long to wait. The moment I find a buyer for you, I'll be the least of your troubles." He grinned, his bristly beard stretching the smile into a facsimile of what it should be.

The man took the top of the cage in hand, carrying it by the wire that it was meant to hang from. They were brought into a sparse room with a lonely computer lighting up the dark.

The light was flicked on, illuminating a room that was equally grubby. Shelves cluttered with more knick knacks than books lined one side of it, and faded, peeling wallpaper could be seen everywhere. Sam's hands wrapped around the bars, his eyes flashing from side to side, sizing up their surroundings. If there was a chance for escape, there could be no hesitation.

The man hung the cage from a bracket, most likely left over from when it was in use by an actual animal. Sam's heart went out to any creature that was forced to share a home with this man.

Being suspended over three feet in the air wouldn't slow Sam and Bowman down as much as the man might think. Sam's grappling hook was tucked out of sight in his bag, with more than enough fishing line attached to get him to the floor. Even as the man sat down at the computer, Sam eyed up the lock, noting that it was in reach if the man left the room unguarded.

Bowman, unlike Sam, had no supplies on him. All he had were the clothes he wore and no shortage of sharp comments to spit at their captor. Still, he prowled around the edge of their cage warily, trying to see any weaknesses in it. The metal bars were cold when he wrapped a hand around them. Every step was silent against the metal floor as he stalked around, trying to ignore the rhythmic swaying of the cage.

He couldn't help but notice that, though there were some papers and pictures pinned to the walls in the room, there were no windows. No sunlight would be reaching in, and no opportunities to soak up the precious rays with his wings. He really would need to be careful with how he spent his energy. He could get some from the electric light overhead, but it was a paltry offering compared to actual sunlight.

Bowman was already restless.

Leaving the bottom portion of the cage to Sam's keen investigation, Bowman fluttered his wings and took to the air. Flying inside the cage sent an almost painful bolt through his heart and down into his gut.

They were trapped.

Even Bowman's wings couldn't get him out of this situation. In fact, judging by the way the human kept glancing at them, they only made things worse for him. Bowman was quite a prize for the human, much like he'd been when those children chased him in the park. Bowman's strange appearance to them had only given them more reasons to prod and pull at him.

There was a wooden bar hanging from the top of the cage, secured in place by two thin metal chains. Bowman alighted on it, his boots balancing carefully. One hand gripped one of the chains and he folded his wings loosely. The swing moved back and forth lightly as Bowman examined the bars overhead. All he needed was one opening.

The man's work at the computer drew more and more glances as Bowman found no promising avenues for escape. Eventually, he found himself staring warily at the big machine as it hummed away, casting a ghastly blue light on the human's face.

Sam's own investigation was cautious. He didn't show any interest in the door, or the lock that trapped them. Nothing to show that Sam was, in fact, keenly interested in both. Dean's lessons in lockpicking ran through his head and his fingers twitched with the desire to get on with it, but he needed to bide his time. Until the human left them alone, picking the lock would do no good.

At one point, the man stood, taking a camera out to snap photos of his unusual finds. Sam stubbornly covered his face up, refusing to look into the lens. A jarring tap was the result, the entire cage set to swinging. Sam tumbled, his footing unsteady on the unstable ground already. He rolled into the side, his satchel off his shoulders.

"Just one looksie and we're all finished here, pretty," the man leered at Sam.

Sam tilted his head up, glaring. He flipped the man the bird, refusing to just sit quiet and pose.

The camera snapped anyway and the flash lingered in a spot on Sam's vision. The man hummed as he leaned over to Bowman to add his image to the gallery.

Bowman shrank back as the human's looming shadow crept over him. His tight grip on the chain of the swing didn't let up for a second. The human's size, made so clear to him by the way he blocked the view beyond him, sent a shiver of fear up Bowman's spine.

Then, when the glinting eye of the camera thing was pointed at him, Bowman remembered something that Jacob had told him about the things.

"The pictures those take can last almost forever. You shouldn't let anyone use a camera on you, Bowman. It could put the whole village at risk."

That was the only advice Bowman needed to drive his next action. He hopped deftly off the swing, his wings shooting open with a snap. Though he didn't have much room, Bowman flew back and forth in the cage, occasionally gripping the bars to prop himself up before kicking off to the other side again. So long as he kept moving, the gaze of that machine couldn't catch him.

The man scowled at the sprite. "Quit it, you flit!"

The next time Bowman fluttered over to the side, he banged on the cage. Bowman was caught by surprise by the bars striking his front, falling back in a daze while the camera snapped.

Bowman hit the floor of the cage hard, a whuff of air carrying his breath out of him. His arms tingled from the jarring impact with the bars of the cage up above, and his back protested his landing on his wings when he fell to the bottom. While the swaying subsided, he tried to regain the feeling in his extremities.

Sam was sent tumbling from the force as well, his own bag slamming into him when his body rammed into the hard side. He groaned, shifting against the ground.

The man clicked through his pictures, unsatisfied. "I guess I'll jus' have ta take more if they ask," he muttered to himself. He made his way back over to the computer to load up the images.

"Blast it," Bowman muttered, grimacing. His wings quivered when he rolled over on his side, letting them splay out on the floor of the cage behind him. While the human fiddled with his camera at the computer, Bowman hesitantly folded them up. The squeezes and the jostling were both beginning to wear on the small sprite. His wings were sore.

Bowman pushed himself up to his hands and knees, casting a glare at the human before turning his concerned gaze to Sam. "... Are you okay?" he asked, almost sheepishly. After all, it was Bowman's antics that had gotten Sam knocked around this time.

Sam shoved himself up off the ground. " 'M fine," he muttered quietly while he watched the man go back over to the laptop. Dammit. All this time, he and Dean had managed to keep people his size off the map. One stupid mistake later and they might all be in danger, not to mention the sprites with them.

The man attached the camera with a cord, clicking through a few prompts on the screen to get the download moving. Sam found himself once again holding the bars with bated breath, praying for a miracle to pop up and refuse to finish the download.

But there was nothing, and a loading bar appeared in the screen. Sam's heart fell even further as he watched the green start to fill it. Soon, proof of them both would be online.


The rumbling in the ground was merely a backdrop. Neither the pursuer nor the pursued paid it any mind as they continued their chase on the open floor. They didn't even heed the rapidly approaching shadow or the rush of air coming with it. Nothing else mattered until the winner of their race could be determined.

Jacob thought he might be gaining a lead when the ground exploded.

It was only after he was thrown forward from the shockwave that he realized nothing had blown up. The ground had simply quaked from a monumental impact, throwing him into the air and forward to land flat on his face. Something struck the ground with a force greater than Jacob could even fully comprehend at his tiny scale. It was so much greater than him. The impact rattled his entire skeleton, leaving him almost numb.

He groaned and rolled over, looking back and expecting to see that spider leaping on him in smug triumph. Instead of the outstretched legs and eight beady arachnid eyes lunging for its cornered prey, Jacob saw a wall of rubber and leather.

One twitching, hairy leg stuck out from underneath, the rest of the spider obliterated and soaking right into the carpet beneath the heavy weight. There was almost nothing left of Jacob's most recent foe in his walk through the giant world.

A sole of dark rubber covered in scuffs and smudges stood before him. Rising even higher above that was a wall of thick leather, covered in its own scratches and marks from the countless steps it had taken. One of which had just pulverized the predator intent on taking him.

Panting from the scare and trying to get his heart rate down, Jacob's eyes trailed upwards. The faded denim of enormous jeans seemed to stretch on forever. He'd seen this view mere minutes ago when Dean grabbed the phone. Now Jacob was even closer to the enormous, devastatingly powerful boot. He wouldn't have guessed how much difference it made in the perspective.

Knowing how close he'd come to joining that spider in its demise made all the difference in the world.

Jacob had never seen the statue of liberty, but lying mere inches away from Dean's colossal boot gave him an idea of how it might look. Beyond the towers of his legs there was the impossibly large chest that Jacob had trekked on and been pinned to the other night. Because he was so small, he was barely even a tickle to Dean.

Like a tiny bug, easy to brush away. Easier even than that spider had been to snuff out.

Jacob's breathing halted when he was looking straight up. Dean's face, so far away, had a very clear look on it. A concentrated frown glared down at Jacob from the sky like the face of a coming storm.

This time, it was glaring at him.

Seeing that glare up close had been intimidating. Despite his cranky outburst the other morning, that glare had made Jacob want to find a hole to curl up in and hide. Seeing it now, from so high up, was worse. Dean's eyes were locked directly on Jacob, right after killing a spider with the simplest of movements. And Jacob, from that angle, was just another bug to Dean. Even as Dean leaned down closer, green, Jacob-sized eyes squinting, recognition never crossed his face.

He couldn't tell it was Jacob.

Panic erupted again and replaced every other thought in Jacob's head and every drop of blood in his veins. With a frantic heart and pained lungs, Jacob rolled over and scrambled to his feet, adrenaline almost turning him to jelly in the first surge.

He bolted.

Jacob knew in the back of his mind where logic was sequestered that he was doomed. Dean was too big. Too fast for someone so tiny to ever hope to escape. Just another step and then the pest problem would be taken care of.

Just one more step.

One more step, while Jacob would need to sprint dozens to have a hope of escape.

Logic or not, Jacob's terror blinded him to everything else. The dresser seemed like a mile away after his sprint out from under it, but he would dash for it and dive under it and hide where he was safe from the bus-sized boots that wanted to crush him instantly.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Jacob thought maybe he was just imagining it. The sounds of words made it to his ears, but his brain never processed them. He was too busy running for his life. He had to get away. He needed to survive. That was the name of the game. Jacob could feel the creeping sensation snaking its way up his back as the danger of the situation bore down on him.

Jacob would lose the game.

And if you lose ... well, you lose.

An ominous shadow fell over him…


A/N:

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Next: April 11th, 2018 at 9pm.

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