A/N: This is the fifth part of the Brothers Lost series, and the end of Season One. If you want to read the rest of the stories, they are found on my page.
Part 1: The Road Not Taken
Part 2: The Water's Fine
Part 3: There's No Place Like Home
Part 4: A Time To Heal
Part 5: It's a Tall World After All
Related short stories: A Ghost from the Past (11 x 17)
While Sam is nearing the end of his recovery from his broken arm, Jacob Andris goes out to investigate a nearby case. The last thing the Winchesters expect is for Jacob to then go missing, and it's up to them to unravel the truth of what happened to their loyal friend… with a little help. ( A size!fic)
Jacob woke with a painful bump on the back of his head and winced. He lay on his back on a hard, wavy-textured surface that he didn't recognize from anywhere. Uneven ridges dug into his shoulders. The air was stuffy and warm, but he shivered as though retaining that warmth was beyond him. He missed his hoodie sweatshirt as that cold seeped slowly past his skin.
He opened his eyes and stared in blank confusion at what looked like the thick fabric of a tent.
"What the fuck," he mumbled, pushing his hands onto the ground beneath him so he could sit up and tenderly rub the back of his head. There was definitely a bump there, but he didn't remember what he'd done to hurt himself. He patted his hands over the rest of his body, checking for injuries. His clothes were slightly bedraggled but he was unharmed. His only bruise was pounding at the back of his skull.
He recounted what he did know. His name was Jacob Andris. He was eighteen years old. He was staying at his mother's home for a break "between jobs," at least as far as she knew. It was lucky that she was so happy to have him home that she'd never ask him to elaborate.
The truth was he was giving his friends and travel companions, the Winchester brothers, time to recover. Sam was coming along just fine in the last few weeks, but he still had more healing to do after Jacob's former friend, Bobby Loran, got his greedy hands on the brothers.
Any untrustworthy human finding out about the Winchesters was a recipe for disaster, and they could not afford disasters. Sam was only four inches tall, and Dean even smaller. They were too vulnerable in hands that they couldn't trust. Sam got hurt because of that.
At first, staying around the house was relaxing for all three of them, providing a safe, calm place for much-needed healing. Dean was building a home within the walls of Jacob's bedroom, a place for the brothers to live when they all visited, so they could remain secret.
Peace had its perks, but, like a siren song, the job they'd all taken upon themselves had called to them. Sam and Dean had spent more than half of their lives unable to fulfill what they felt they should be doing.
Saving people, hunting things. Things being vampires, werewolves, vengeful ghosts, and other supernatural monsters. Jacob was still catching up to the long list of things that existed that shouldn't, but he had a few hunts under his belt. He understood the cause. It wasn't just the brothers that felt the stir-crazy drive to get out there again.
While they laid low, Jacob had found a hunt. He went out that day just to scope out the scene. Dean had given him very specific instructions to not touch anything, dammit, and Jacob had driven less than an hour out to check it out. If it was worth their time, they could figure out a plan for the next step.
He frowned as a haze clouded over the memories. He remembered searching the place, but the drive home and walking in was fuzzy. He guessed the growing bump on his head had something to do with it. He needed to find out where he was now, and get back to Sam and Dean to-
That was when he noticed a shaking in the ground and stared down. It rattled through his bones. Then there was another mini-earthquake, and Jacob was parched. He reached out a tentative hand to feel the surface beneath him again, willing it to not be what he thought it was.
Jacob shot to his feet, pausing when lightheadedness and a dull, fiery pain spread from the back of his head and nearly sent him toppling again. He pushed the way-too-heavy fabric up and sought out the edge, all while the tremors in the ground continued.
When he found the light again, squinting at the sudden, bright onslaught, Jacob thought he was hallucinating. There was a cabinet in front of him, or what looked like a cabinet. It was several stories tall. The space underneath it was higher than his head.
ShitfuckDAMMIT, this is nothappening, it can't-
More tremors came, ever closer, and everything fell into place as Jacob recognized the living room of his mother's home. The fabric he had been trapped under was the dark blue fabric of his jacket hood, shrugged off when he got in the house. It was one of the last things he remembered.
Of course, he also distinctly remembered not being tiny when he was last awake, too.
Jacob threw the hood fabric the rest of the way off of himself and dashed forward. The open room stretched above him and his heart pounded from the exposure. The room was so big. No, he reminded himself. He was so fucking small.
He dove under the cabinet just as the source of the tremors all but stomped around the corner. Jacob was alarmed to see that the shoes making those enormous earthquakes were nothing more than his mother's flat slip-on shoes. His mother, more than a foot shorter than him, strolled into the room and paused, and Jacob could feel the shaking from every step.
It was no wonder Dean griped that he stomped all the time.
"Jacob?" his mother's voice called above, a thunderous noise that warped her familiar cadence into something eerie and wrong. It was too big, too loud, and too much. He crept forward, chancing the barest peek out from under his hiding place.
Mariana Andris loomed overhead, her eyes fixed downward. Jacob almost felt his heart leaping up into his throat, but he realized she was staring in confusion at his jacket, which somehow hadn't shrunk down with him.
He lost his nerve and backed up when his mother took a few more steps. The ground shook beneath Jacob's feet and he stumbled back until he was under the center of the cabinet. A hand bigger than him fell into view, grasping the absolutely enormous circus tent of a hoodie and lifting it off the floor.
"Jacob, what have I told you about just leaving your stuff everywhere?! This isn't a motel!" Mariana yelled across the house, while turning on her heel and stalking off. Jacob had to close his eyes and breathe slowly, deeply.
What the hell happened?
SUPERNATURAL
"Dean, someone's coming!"
Dean jolted up in surprise from where he was bent over the shelves in their home, trying to straighten them for the fifteenth time. For some reason, the middle one just wouldn't cooperate with him from start to finish. One side had started out bowed down, now the other side was slanting upwards just to spite him for trying to fix it.
With an annoyed curse, he straightened up, wiping the sweat from his brow. Sam was in the passage that connected to their home to the opening to Jacob's room. To give him something to do, and mostly to keep him out of the way hovering, Dean had him acting as lookout.
Sam would watch for when Jacob got back from checking out the new case. Dean didn't want him to go alone, but he also wouldn't leave Sam on his own with one arm still out of commission, so it left him stuck with no options. A message of don't touch anything, dammit! was the last thing he'd shouted to Jacob as he left, and now they were both fretting over how long it had been since Jacob had gone to investigate. They were eager to hear from him, but they also wanted to make sure their trustworthy human was okay.
Which was the real reason why Dean was straightening that one damn shelf and Sam was acting as a sentinel.
Tossing aside the small screwdriver he'd borrowed from Jacob (it was for fixing eyeglasses, he'd found, and was only about half his size), Dean darted out the front door to their home, pushing the block of wood that served as a door aside.
Sam was waiting at the entrance to the walls, the wallpaper pushed outwards no more than half a centimeter. It wouldn't be a big enough hole for anyone to notice unless they knew it was there.
Like Jacob.
No knocks came as the footsteps outside halted. The door was shoved open, sweeping effortlessly across the carpeted floor with enough effort to knock over either small brother with no hesitation.
Mariana Andris, the petite mother of Jacob Andris, leaned into the room. She was a full foot shorter than her tall son, and smaller around than him despite a rounder frame. It was hard to believe that a guy who stood 6'5" tall could come from a delicate woman like her. Jacob had gotten her smile, but definitely not her size.
Of course, her size didn't make much of a difference with the brothers. She was still a human, and could still sweep them off the ground in a hand. So they remained in the wall, warily watching as she tossed in a huge, hooded jacket. It fell to the ground in a heap, a rush of air hitting the wall where they were standing and knocking the wallpaper closed.
They were silent as the door to the room shut and her footsteps receded, the shaking in the ground slowly dying off.
"Jacob was wearing that," Sam said.
Dean's eyes were hooded. "There's no way he wouldn't come right back after checking out a case." Worry flooded him for letting the teen go off on his own.
"Something's wrong."
They were cautious as they approached the hoodie, knowing that without Jacob, they were vulnerable.
Sam plucked at a sleeve with his good arm, rubbing the fabric between two fingers. The threads were large enough for him to thread his fingers between, and he had on occasion before. "Dean, why would his hoodie be here if he left with it on?" His brows pinched in concern. "We've gotta find him."
"How, Sam? If he's out of the house…"
Sam cut him right off. "Dean, remember that knack you have? Finding things?"
It was Dean's turn for his brow to furrow. "What's that have to do with Jacob? I thought we discovered it didn't work on people."
Sam gave him a huge grin. "Not for Jacob. He doesn't go anywhere without that necklace, so if you focus on it…"
"I can figure out if he's in the house!" Dean finished without missing a beat. He stepped back. "Okay, lemme focus. This isn't easy if I don't need something."
He held a hand to his forehead, scrunching his eyes shut. All that filled his mind was the jade green glass bead that was the centerpiece to Jacob's necklace. Like Dean's amulet, it was a connection to his family. Only, unlike Dean, that family had passed away a long time before. Moving on, and leaving Jacob and his mother behind.
Jacob would never take it off.
A chill ran up Dean's neck, and he knew he had it. Jacob's location.
Gasping in a deep breath, he shared a look of surprise with Sam. "He's still in the house."
A/N:
These boys are back, and there's already a mystery on their hands!
This story is cowritten with neonthebright/PL1, and beta'd by borrowedtimeandspace/Zepheera221B!
-There will likely be a hiatus in June due to nightmares06 getting surgery, so stay tuned for details!
Leave a review if you're enjoying the series!
Next: May 26th, 2021 at 9PM EST