A/N: This is the first part of the Brothers Chosen series. Strap on in for the fun!

On a standard witch hunt, Dean Winchester manages to get himself and his brother Sam tied up in a larger mystery when he finds evidence, witness and accomplice wrapped up in one very small package. (A size!fic)

Stan woke to a harsh jostling.

He recognized the sensation as Nicholas letting his duffel bag drop to the floor. Blinking blearily, the nearly four-inch-tall redhead sat up in the jar he was kept in, waiting to be retrieved.

He must have fallen asleep during the drive, Stan thought. Nicholas' yearly road trip was never particularly far, but he would always milk the trek out for about a week, reveling in the suffering of his victims.

"Witches gotta have fun," Nicholas always said.

Stan was always exhausted by the end of this trip, emotionally and physically fatigued from the work Nicholas had him do. No one he killed went quietly. That would be no fun at all for the witch, even if it made Stan queasy to hear about and occasionally see.

But he always did what Nicholas told him. He had to. So he kept his feelings to himself.

Stan's life had been this way for what felt like forever. He could hardly remember anything before being sold to the witch. One thing that was impossible to forget was the searing pain from the brand he was given by the people that sold him to Nicholas.. That would never leave his memory. But it was so long ago… Stan wasn't at all sure how long, but he never thought of it.

It hardly mattered now that he was with the witch.

He was the witch's favorite toy. Stan's small stature made him a perfect plant to sneak into a home, find a way into the walls or some tiny crevice that a human would never be able to reach into, and leave behind the hexbags that Nicholas made. He had planted many hexbags over the course of the past week alone.

In his hometown, Nicholas was always careful with his victims. At a population of a few thousand, Broken Bow wasn't the largest city around, but the people were tightly packed enough that if he simply laid down bodies willy-nilly, people would take notice and connect some dots. Especially bad people, who he called hunters, heartless grunts who wouldn't hesitate to murder Stan or Nicholas if they were found out.

No, his victims were carefully chosen, their deaths meticulously thought out and executed masterfully with Stan's help.

But on these road trips of his, all that went out the door. There were several tiny villages all within driving distance, and Nicholas allowed himself to splurge. He'd choose a few random souls to snuff out and threw together some more exciting hexbags that he didn't ordinarily have cause to use. Once he got to glimpse the fruits of his and Stan's labors, they moved on to the next town.

The process was long, yet thoroughly satisfying for Nicholas.

After a moment in which Nicholas got himself settled, his large hand reached into the side pocket of his duffel, firmly grasped the top of Stan's jar and lifted the smaller man into the light. Stan blinked again as his eyes adjusted, his vision filled with an intense blue gaze and framed by wavy brown hair. Stan's own shock of red hair seemed to glow even in the light of the overhead lamp.

"Home sweet home," the witch intoned with a feral grin.

Nicholas unscrewed the top and Stan braced himself, expecting the witch to pluck him out and put him down somewhere. But it never happened. Instead, the jar simply tilted on its side, and Stan slid around on the old handkerchief he used as a cushion and blanket. Only then was Stan, jar and all, placed horizontally on the desk in the study just off the first room.

"Rest now," said Nicholas in a voice that would almost seem gentle if not for the ever-present rasp in his voice that always warned of danger. "You did well, my pet."

Stan's pulse quickened as it sank in. He was being rewarded! He rarely got any kind of treat when Nicholas was pleased with his work, and Stan knew better than to bite the hand that fed him. Or allowed him to rest after a long week.

"Thank you, sir!" he chirped, his voice light as he eagerly rearranged his handkerchief so he could comfortably lay down with part of it draped over him like a blanket.

Nicholas sat down to journal this past week's goings-on, taking enjoyment in keeping posterity of his victims. Not all of them were fun, but there were plenty of memorable ones to jot down from the trip.

Just when Stan was about to fall asleep, a fingertip brushed against the tiny flame of hair. Stan was instantly alert, propping himself up on an elbow to look up at Nicholas expectantly to see what he wanted.

"Do you love me, Stan?" Nicholas asked, leaning down so his eyes were closer to Stan's level.

"Yessir," Stan answered without hesitation.

"And are you happy with me?"

"Yessir."

The witch would ask these questions every once in a while, like a test of Stan's loyalty. Of course Stan was loyal to Nicholas. It didn't matter if the witch was volatile, if any little thing could set him off and provoke him to punish Stan in one way or another.

He was all Stan had in the world.

Nicholas grinned and ruffled Stan's hair again. "Good boy," he crooned before sitting back up and carrying on his work. Stan waited for a minute more before laying himself down again and drifting off into the best sleep he'd had in months.

SUPERNATURAL

It didn't take more than a few days for Nicholas to desire more victims. Still riding the high of his recent purge, the witch grew overconfident and decided to take on three victims at once, spread widely throughout the town to hopefully draw the least amount of attention. He rushed the process all the way through, longing for the instant gratification, and on the same day as he planned them, all three of the hexbags were placed in time for dinner.

Stan took his meal on an end table in the witch's study. Part of a stale oyster cracker, a small dish of water, and for his good work he was given a small crumb of cheese to go with it. As usual, his tiny stomach grumbled with longing when he caught a whiff of the aromas wafting down the hall from the kitchen, but he never dared to ask for anything Nicholas made. That would certainly get him punished.

Stan's hand went absently to his ribs, still sore from earlier. After hauling around two hexbags in a row, he'd grown sore and tired and slower than his previous runs. When he returned much too slowly for the witch's liking, he'd roughly caught Stan in a fist, squeezing just hard enough to discourage any further disappointment.

Luckily, that had been the last one anyway, and Stan had gotten them all placed. That saved him from any worse punishment.

Long after they had eaten, Nicholas sat at his desk to write, narrowing his eyes at Stan. The tiny man hurried to fetch the witch's pencil from its cup at the top of the desk, carrying it over to the expectant hand. Nicholas took it with a disinterested sigh and began writing. Stan stayed nearby, knowing better than to wander.

After an hour or two, there came a loud crash from the front door. Stan shot to his feet in his startlement, and was quickly snatched up in Nicholas' hand, moved much too fast and dropped roughly to the carpeted floor.

"Run and hide!" Nicholas ordered, his voice a thin hiss compared to the gruff barks coming from the next room. "Wait for me while I take care of this."

Stan's blood ran cold as it sank in. Hunters! Without question, he turned and ran full tilt, keeping to the wall as Nicholas stood to face the men who had barged into his home and dared take on a witch.

As Stan hurried to get out of sight, the first intruder came into Nicholas' view. He was tall; taller than Nicholas would ever be. A denim and leather tower, his boots scuffed loudly as he skid to a halt, hands going out to either side to stop his momentum, and fierce green eyes snapped to Nicholas, locking onto him.

"Well, Sammy," he drawled, not a trace of fear or worry in his voice. Unbridled confidence was the only emotion he gave off. "Look what we have here. The big bad witch of the village, back from terrorizing the villagers."

A shadow behind the man detached from the walls, resolving into a second hunter. This one was even taller, broad shoulders and chest filling the doorway. Wavy brown hair fluffed in a breeze let in from the broken door behind them.

He held a book in one hand, a smoking bowl in the other, eyes wide as he recited from the tome. "Furor divina virtute in infer-"

Before the hunter could finish, Nicholas threw a desperate hand toward him and he flew backwards into the next room. The book slid across the floor and the contents of the bowl were scattered as it came down with a clatter.

Stan's frantic run stuttered at the tremble of the aftershocks of the hunter's impact through the floor. He glanced over his shoulder at the sudden threat that had invaded their home, and regretted it immediately. He thought he'd been terrified before just feeling the tremors of each step of the hunters' entrance, hearing their deep, rumbling voices that seemed to vibrate the very air and send shudders through the smaller man's chest.

But looking back…

Just looking straight on, he could see enormous boots well past Nicholas' shoes. Rugged jeans seemed to rise straight into the sky from them, and Stan didn't dare look up to see who they were attached to.

In the back of his mind, Stan thanked goodness that the other hunter was out of sight. He might have fainted dead away to see two giants if the other one was anywhere near as gigantic as this one.

"Got a plan B?" taunted the witch with more confidence than he felt as he edged around the room, circling the green-eyed man. Every single nerve was on edge, primed and ready to deal with anything these hunters had in store for him. His only worry was the sheer size of them. He'd taken care of the taller one for now, but if they teamed up on him and managed to evade his magic, Nicholas knew he wouldn't stand a chance against their combined strength at his less-than-average height.

The hunter sidestepped, circling in time with the witch. Despite his greater weight, his steps were light and quiet, accustomed to staying unnoticed on break-ins like this. The rubber soles hit the ground soundlessly, the rug cushioning any noise that might escape.

The tremors from him walking would be noticeable to someone the size of Stan no matter how he tried to disguise them, but to other humans, this made him uncannily good at his job.

Withdrawing a hand from his jacket, the hunter turned a knife over in his hand. The light glinted off the cool metal edges, and something in his face darkened. "Let's just say, I don't come unprepared," he said, anger putting a harsh edge in his voice. His attention remained focused on the witch while the sounds from the other room highlighted the other man climbing to his feet. "You've killed your last."

The sight of those great boots of the hunter's coming closer reminded Stan to run, and he did so despite the soreness spreading throughout his body, from his ribs to his legs as they pumped with all their strength to put as much distance between himself and the humans as he could.

Nicholas' bright blues bore right back into the hunter's eyes, dedicating all of his focus to the threat. The other hunter was recovering, and it was only a matter of time before they managed to double-team him.

The second the hunter made a move to advance, Nicholas pushed him back with another wave of his hand, this time adding more force to the blow with a sharp Latin incantation. In the desperate effort to keep his life, the witch hardly cared that he sent the hunter straight into his desk, smashing it to pieces with his body.

Nor did he notice Stan, mere feet away from the hunter, as he was thrown to the ground when it shook from the catastrophic impact the human made. He tumbled a few inches from the momentum of his sprint, hands flying up to cover his head as shrapnel from the desk rained down from the sky.

Help! Too frightened to speak, Stan pleaded silently, hoping he wouldn't be crushed.

Stan got lucky this time, the debris landed harmlessly around him. Then he curled into a tighter ball, frightened, as he endured more tremors when the human slid to the floor. Stan finally moved to sit up and find something to hide under until this all stopped, but he froze before he could get further than propping himself up on thin arms.

Time seemed to slow as two sets of green eyes, one large and one miniscule, met.

A/N:

And a new AU has begun!

Brothers Chosen is so far unique in the Brothers Apart multiverse, in that it is still centered around people that are cursed by Celeste, but Sam and Dean have NOT been affected themselves. These brothers are about to find an entire world they had no idea existed, and have to figure out what they'll do about it!

We will also eventually have Brothers United join Brothers Chosen in that important spot, as Oscar will be the only smol in the crew in that one!

Next: November 24th, 2021 at 9PM est

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