A/N:
Thanks to Shadow cat 181 for the review!
Bobby snickered quietly, hearing the angry little voice echoing strangely in the glass container. He tilted the jar from one side to the other while he crept up the stairs, making his way to his room and hoping he wouldn't wake his parents. He didn't want to deal with them at this hour.
Scar crouched down with his wings unfolded and braced on the transparent floor of the jar. The sway and tilt proved too much for even the stubborn knight to keep his feet effectively. The human toyed with them until he came to a tall, rectangular door, which admitted him to yet another confoundingly boxy room.
"The furnishings are enormous," he muttered to Sam even as the door closed behind the three of them. "Hiding behind something may be a good temporary plan. Somewhere he can't reach."
"Still chatting up a storm in there, aren't ya?" Bobby interrupted, setting the jar down harder than necessary on a desk by the window. He sat at the chair so he could lean in to peer at his prisoners.
Sam crossed his arms, meeting the human stare for stare. Even leaning down the kid loomed over them, and in a way that Jacob always actively tried to avoid.
Bobby wanted them to be afraid of him.
This thought stiffened Sam's back. He wasn't about to roll over and act like someone's pet or possession.
"I'm sorry," Sam said tartly back to Bobby. "You'd rather we stare at you the same as you've been doing? I know you can't take your eyes off us, can you?" The impression of being watched hadn't left him the entire time. Even when the human looked away, there was the impression that Bobby wanted to look at him. It made Sam's skin crawl to the point where he almost wanted to take off his skin and wash it in the clear stream in the Wellwood to scrub off the prickling sensation.
Bobby smirked and tapped a finger on the glass. "Like lookin' at a freak at the circus," he shot back, his blue eyes glinting maliciously while an unconcerned smile twitched at his lips. The backtalk was a little amusing, but the fact that it just kept coming when they were clearly outmatched irked him. Even the tiny little sword at the wingless guy's side didn't worry him at all. If the little critter got annoying with it, Bobby would take it away, simple as that.
"I am a little curious about what you are, squirt," he said almost conversationally. He was tempted to reach into the jar and drag the little guy out so he could get a closer look at the teeny little limbs, the bitty face, but he refrained for the moment.
They would get used to confinement like that. They would not be running free in the house.
"He's a knight, you stupid child," Scar spoke up. He kept his voice level, like he was merely scolding a nestling. His eyes and hard expression spoke volumes more, as was his way. Scar, a knight who knew respect for even the wolf he blinded himself, had nothing but contempt for the human staring in at them. "He's a far better fighter than you could hope to be, boy, so you should show more respect."
Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Well, damn, if that's how it is, why don't we just fight so you can show me how badass you are?" he taunted, flicking the glass again.
Sam gave the hand a flat look, holding out an arm for balance as the jar trembled around them. The image came to mind of kids pulling the wings off of butterflies just to see if they could, and how angry he'd grown as a child when he'd seen that. It was unfair, and it would kill off the insects as surely as stepping on them, but it would be a more drawn-out death.
It was hard to say if Bobby would ever try tortures like that, but Sam wouldn't bother betting against them. They were vulnerable to him so long as they were in his power.
"You really can't tell what I am?" Sam asked, faking a hurt tone of voice in the hopes that it might get through to the human faster than his other methods so far. He refused to rise to the bait about fighting the kid. It wouldn't be a fair fight unless they were on the same scale. And then, Sam would be the one that came out on top. It wasn't even a question in his mind. "I mean, at least the sprites had the excuse that they'd never seen a human before when I first was in the forest. But you see humans every day."
Bobby blinked lazily, taking away more from Sam's taunts than perhaps was intended. For one thing, the little guy wasn't from the forest at all. He didn't actually have a tie to the sprites other than proximity and being the same size. And who knew how the little thing had gotten out there in the first place; certainly not walking. A fox could snap him up.
"Last I checked, people get a little taller than, what are you, like four inches? Nice try, little guy. Good effort." He grinned tauntingly and held his thumb and finger apart, demonstrating Sam's small size.
Bored of the banter, Bobby reached up and gripped the rim of the lidless jar once more. He roughly turned the whole thing over on its side, knocking Sam and Scar off their feet. It gave him an edge when he reached in with his other hand towards Sam, but he wasn't quite expecting Scar to recover so quickly.
The sprite knight didn't have room to fully spread his wings in their confinement. It was hard to maneuver, but as the hand reached in towards Sam, Scar leapt to his feet and in the next instant jumped up onto the back of the human's hand. The other one was wounded and irritated with poison. Scar thought he might have one more small container of venom that he could use, and once he landed, he reached into his jacket to seek it out.
Before he could, the hand lifted up and pinned him between it and the curved glass wall. The breath was forced harshly from Scar's lungs and his wings were compressed. Scar grimaced and tried to force some defiant words out of his mouth, while Bobby maintained a bored expression.
"Right, okay. Just a fair warning, if you try to stab me, I will lift up the jar exactly like this. I wouldn't be able to help flinching because of that annoying little toothpick you have there. Think his wings could take it?" he said, looking directly through the warped glass at Sam. "Step out onto the desk."
Sam refused to look at Scar and show his worry for his mentor. His sharp hazels remained trained on Bobby, wary of another unexpected move. The rapier was brandished in his hands and held at the ready, but inside, Sam knew it would do him no good.
No matter what happened to him, he couldn't risk getting someone else hurt.
As much as he backtalked Bobby, Sam did it to keep the human distracted from the sprite. There was something about the way Bobby looked at Scar. Like he was a long lost possession being reclaimed, coveted for so long.
Sam couldn't let this human go claiming people as his own, whatever it took. No matter that Bobby considered them less than people because of their size. Sam knew that didn't matter and never would. Jacob and Dean both understood, why couldn't this kid?
"Wait!" Sam cried, throwing out a hand. "Don't. If you hurt his wings he might never fly again. What's a sprite without wings? That's what you wanted, right? Proof of sprites?" He lowered his sword down. "I'm coming out, see?" Sam carefully picked his steps, hoping to avoid falling down again if Bobby moved. He refused to meet Scar's gaze.
Scar tried to writhe himself free of the hand crushing him into the erstwhile ceiling. If he could get loose, Sam wouldn't have anything holding him back from fighting. As it was, a knuckle was digging into Scar's gut, preventing him from telling Sam to fight anyway, to mar up the human's hands as much as he could.
He loathed the fact that he'd been reduced to a bargaining tool. Threatened with crushed wings just to get one of his knights to comply ... Scar had never faced an enemy that would use tactics like that, but that didn't mean he couldn't adapt. Sam wasn't the only one to notice the way the human looked at him.
Bobby held still, giving Sam as much room as he could to get past his arm and the opening of the jar. Once Sam was out, he let Scar fall from his hand and tilted the jar back upright, trapping the sprite from an easy exit.
"Good boy," Bobby said with a chuckle teasing the edge of his voice. The condescending smirk loomed over Sam on purpose. He tapped the irritated, bruising skin on his hand from Sam's vicious attack earlier and added, "You'll be making up for this in no time, you keep behaving like that."
"Blast it, what makes you think we're your property, boy?" Scar snarled from inside the jar, his hands pressed against the glass. His wings were fanning open and closed, and he waited for a chance to fly out of the open jar. For now, he kept watch on Sam.
"We've been through this, if your little pin-sized brains can keep up sometime this century," Bobby answered icily while he picked up a pen from the clutter on the desk. He focused on Sam again, using the tip of the pen to prop up one of his little arms, and went on like they were discussing the weather. "I found you on my land. That's what makes you my property."
Sam stared back at him, his face expressionless. He tried his best to ignore how helpless he felt, being treated like nothing more than a toy. Back in the beginning, when they first ran into Jacob and got a good look at a human that wasn't cursed, Sam had worried about this type of situation. The teen had ended up proving any worries about humans wrong. Though he was fascinated at first by Bowman and Sam, he'd treated them like people. Even his first instinctive grab was tempered compared to this handling.
Bobby was determined to live up to every stereotype in the archives.
"People can't be owned, Bobby," Sam persisted. His tone was level, matching his expressionless face. It kept the human from seeing the fear hiding behind his facade. "There was an entire war because of that, and the slave owners lost. Do you really want to repeat mistakes like that?"
Bobby raised an eyebrow and released Sam's arm from his observation. He reached down and poked the little guy's chest to demonstrate the size discrepancy between them. Sam flinched back, holding a hand against his chest. "All that stuff was about humans, squirt," he countered, not even pausing to consider his own thinking. There was a time when he might have stopped to think more carefully about this, but the demon had helped him understand that was silly. He was right, so why doubt himself?
Scar had seen enough. He let out a frustrated sound before stepping back from the glass and preparing his wings, staring upward at the opening. He'd see about recreating his Wolfblind feat, somehow, some way. He launched himself upward at the opening, trying not to bang his wings on the sides around him.
The narrow space made that impossible, and it slowed him down. Enough that, when he finally emerged from the top of the jar, a hand reached out and snatched around his body. Then it didn't matter how wide he could spread his wings, but he buffeted them against the human anyway.
"You are trophies," Bobby said quietly, a truly dangerous edge in his voice now as he regarded the defiant sprite. "Stop all this shit. You lost. That's on you. I win." After his short tirade, he reached up with his other hand and pinched one of Scar's beating wings in his thumb and finger to stretch it out and observe the leafy limb once more while Scar continued to thrash and writhe in his hand.
Sam snarled, his calm countenance dropping away as though it never existed. With no other options open to him, he seized the moment to do what he'd hoped he would never have to do.
The young knight sprinted for the edge of the desk.
But he wasn't trying to escape.
When Sam reached the edge and hurled himself off, his leap carried him far enough to slam against Bobby's shirt. His fingers slid through the thick fabric, easily fitting between the threads that made it up. He'd noticed with Jacob how easy it was to climb human clothing, and now took full advantage.
Wasting no time, Sam scaled straight up. If he could reach Bobby's neck, his sword would do a lot more damage than Bobby would expect.
A/N:
Things might be grim, but Sam and Scar won't give up!
I know there's a lot going on right now, we're all feeling the changes happening in the world! If anyone needs a distraction from it all, remember you can always send us a message on the brothers apart tumblr. We are happy to get messages, and it helps us all to have a distraction in these times!
There will be a hiatus coming up from March 26 to April 2nd because I will be out of state and away from my computer. During this time I will be unable to post stories, but will have full access to the tumblr blog if anyone wants to wander by.
Next: March 22nd, 2020 at 9pm EST.