A/N
Thanks to Christine, Wunjo and mckydstarlight for the wonderful reviews!
Jacob pushed himself up off the floor under the desk. Both he and Sam had collapsed there after Dean's desperate shove. The floor shook from the massive hunter's fall all the way across the room. Jacob shivered, from the cold but in large part also from the fact that something had the strength to knock a fully grown human back so harshly. Until now, Dean had seemed like such an immovable thing; a constant, towering presence that had happened to take Jacob in as a brother.
And now that big brother was knocked out cold, arms and legs sprawled over the debris of a table that had smashed to pieces under his colossal weight, splinters flying outwards from the destruction. In one frightening attack, the vengeful spirit had taken out Sam and Jacob's only defender in the world. Without him, they'd be stuck living in the dark, eking out a sparse existence with survival as the only goal.
The temperature in the room fell so quickly, Jacob was practically numb in his fingers, but he offered Sam a hand to haul him up regardless. Looking out from where they'd been pushed under the desk, the spirit's shoes were visible. It seemed like it was taking its time walking over to Dean. Maybe it wanted to let more anger boil to the surface before it struck out and finished Dean off.
"No way," Jacob spat, sprinting out from cover. It was reckless, and dangerous, and he had no way to stop the ghost from doing more harm, but something drove him to get to Dean and to try to help. He needed to help. He and Sam were hunters now. They had to do something, even if it meant just getting Dean to wake up. They were the only ones who could.
Jacob remembered the first time he'd dashed out from cover after his curse. Towering furniture, looming angles, a carpet that stretched on for miles. Today his heart pounded more than it had back then, though, and Jacob hardly registered anything but the prone giant in the room.
Sam darted out after him. Caution was thrown to the wind by both of the smaller brothers. If that spirit got his hands on Dean, it wouldn't be long until the hunter ended up in the same condition as the father of the household.
The spirit didn't pay any mind to the motion down on the ground. His attention was wholly concentrated on the hunter collapsed in front of him. "She's mine, she's mine, she's mine," could be heard whispered under his breath, his eyes locked unrelentingly on Dean, the clear threat. The motion on the floor might as well be mice, too small to do anything and thus disregarded by the spirit.
The plodding footsteps were slow enough for Sam and Jacob to slip by. Their own flight wasn't panicked, but it was desperate. Sam angled for Dean's face. He needed to wake his brother. They needed the hunter. All of their lives depended on it. Even if the spirit ignored Sam and Jacob and just concentrated his rage on Dean, it would be all over. They'd be trapped in the house, with no way to get to the Impala, no one to help them, no one that would care.
Lost and stranded. This time with no hope or help. It wasn't likely that anyone would even come back to the house after such grisly deaths, and that could spell their doom just as much.
"Dammit, Dean. This is the worst time to catch up on your beauty rest!"
Sam reached his face, skidding to a halt a second before he rammed into the hunter. He'd lost sight of Jacob in his rush. "Wake up," Sam pleaded, kicking a boot against Dean's cheek.
While Sam did his best to rouse Dean, Jacob was running up a muscled arm. He'd hopped past the hunter's limp hand where it had fallen without breaking stride in his desperate run, using the arm as a ramp to reach Dean's chest. The spirit had tossed Dean without touching him. There was no telling what kind of damage it had done in its ferocious attack.
When he reached the middle of Dean's chest, Jacob almost laughed in relief as he felt the tell-tale thud of a heartbeat under his boots. Dean's breathing lifted him slowly upwards and lowered him down as the terrain beneath him filled with air. Dean lived. If they could wake him, he could fight back.
Jacob was about to dart towards Dean's face to help Sam wake their brother together, but the muttering of the spirit grew closer and closer and drew Jacob's attention upwards. He whirled around and saw that it was standing over Dean, a menacing leer fixed on his face.
"She is mine," it asserted before lurching downwards with a hand outstretched. Long fingers curled like claws, and Jacob got the impression that the spirit was ready to literally rip Dean's beating heart right out. It didn't even notice the four inch people standing in its way.
It would turn out to be a gross underestimation.
Jacob wasn't sure what made him do it, but he instinctively grabbed the nail that was fixed to his satchel by a loop of leather. Rushing forward a few steps, Jacob drew the weapon like a sword. Memories of what it was like to get snatched in a hand poised just like that one flashed through Jacob's mind as he advanced. When Dean had grabbed him little more than a week ago, the nail was easily confiscated and tossed aside. If someone told Jacob he'd be fighting to defend the same man who had captured him with such ease, he'd have laughed in their face.
Knowing the nail was a pale weapon compared to such a gigantic menace, Jacob lunged at the approaching hand with a desperate jab.
Dean's eyes flashed open when a small blow landed between his eyes. He sucked in a startled gasp, shocked to see Sam right there, standing so close that he couldn't even focus on the tiny form.
Then he heard the angry muttering of the spirit, and his eyes were drawn upwards to it.
A clawed hand was diving at his chest. Before Dean could even think about defending himself, a small glint of metal pulled his gaze. Jacob was standing bravely on Dean's chest, brandishing the small nail he used as his first line of defense. Against Dean, it had done no good.
Against the spirit, it was a whole different story.
The moment the metal passed through the clawed hand that was ready to rip into Dean's chest, Jacob or no Jacob, the spirit gave a shriek of surprise. His form discorporated, vanishing on the breeze as though he'd never been. A whispering cry of She's mine!hung around them until even that faded.
Dean let out a breath of air he'd never realized he was holding. "Holy crap."
Jacob stood in frozen shock on Dean's chest, his arm outstretched with the nail. He couldn't believe what had just happened. Yet here he was, not pulverized as collateral damage in the ghost's mission against Dean. Somehow, he'd actually done it.
He'd saved Dean.
Jacob was staring straight ahead as he lowered the weapon and tried to slip it back into its loop. The adrenaline shaking his hands made him miss the loop several times, and in the end he had to look at it in order to stow the weapon. His own breathing came in irregular bursts as the tension of the last several minutes caught up to him and washed over him like a tide.
"H-holy shit," he breathed, turning to look at Dean and search for Sam. He stumbled and fell to a seated position right on Dean's chest as it rose and fell. "That was crazy," he observed, disbelief encompassing every word.
Dean laughed and Jacob had to grip his shirt as the action bounced him up and down. Dean let his head drop back on the ground with a thunk. "You're telling me," he said, staring up at the ceiling. The last thing he could remember clearly was the ghost tossing him into the air, seconds after making sure the other two were safely out of sight. Now he was lying on… Is this a table? he thought distractedly, shifting so one of the wooden legs wasn't sticking in his back.
Whatever it had been, it was nothing more than firewood now. Dean went to sit up, then paused. Sam was collapsed on the ground next to where his head was, breathing heavily, and Jacob didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon.
"C'mon guys, let's get you off the floor," Dean said. He scooped up Sam first, then sat up more and let Jacob fall into his hand next to Sam. They both fit easily with room to spare on his palm, and he cupped his fingers so they weren't in danger of falling.
Dean arched his eyebrows at the sight of the nail and touched a thumb against it. "That's an iron nail, Jacob. You've got a secret weapon against spirits, and you didn't even tell me," he joked.
Jacob shifted around, sitting up again after tumbling onto Dean's hand. He braced his hand against the massive thumb and then glanced at the nail strapped to his bag. The nondescript thing had been one of his earliest finds after the curse. It was abandoned in the walls of the motel, forgotten since its construction. He'd never given much thought to what it was made of. He just knew he needed a weapon, like Sam's knife or Walt's razor.
"I didn't know," he admitted. Saying it out loud made him realize just how reckless he'd actually been. He'd brandished a weapon at a ghost, with no idea that it was exactly the weapon he needed. If it wasn't made of iron, there'd be no more Jacob, and no more Dean, just like that. Holy shit. I might be an idiot.
Dean shrugged that off. "Your quick thinking kept all of us alive, and now we know what you've got. That's what matters in the end." He brushed his thumb reassuringly against Jacob's shoulder.
With both of them safe in a hand, Dean grabbed his sawed-off from where it had landed and strode over to the desk. "So it's the boyfriend…" he muttered to himself, rifling through the papers on the desk with one hand. He remembered reading about the girl who'd vanished. Before everything had gone down, she'd had a boyfriend who'd gone missing months beforehand.
Staring that spirit down, Dean could match up the distraught, angered face. He lifted up an article from the desk with an obituary in it that was all about the boy. He was a dead ringer for their spirit.
Sam leaned off of the hand, peering down at the paper Dean was holding. Worried for his balance, Dean cupped his hand even closer to his chest. "Watch it, pint-size," he cautioned.
Sam shot him an annoyed glance. "I know what I'm doing," he shot up.
Dean rolled his eyes and cupped the hand closer regardless. "You'll live," he said dryly. "Looks like something must have happened to the boyfriend, and he's seeking some good ole' fashioned revenge from beyond the grave."
Jacob snickered at Sam's annoyed pout. He hadn't even tried to lean over to read those papers, not trusting his shaking arms to hold him securely. After the mad sprint across the room and the short altercation with the spirit, Jacob was still coming down from an adrenaline high unlike anything he'd ever encountered before. The only time that came close was the moment Dean caught him, and that was already forgiven.
He couldn't believe he was still alive. His luck was incredible, though Jacob didn't try to tempt fate by looking over the side of Dean's hand. More likely than not he'd just get vertigo seeing the sheer drop. He was still getting used to being held up to Dean's full height, or resting on his shoulder.
Besides, it was entertaining enough watching Sam become grumpy over Dean's protective insistence. Sam, used to the independence he'd had before, wasn't ready for it by a long shot. Jacob, on the other hand, had always had Sam around. He was more accustomed to the protective nature of a big brother and he'd learned to just go with it.
He grinned at Sam, mouthing pint-size at him, pointing out that Sam appeared to have earned himself a nickname.
Dean was leaning over the desk, digging through the rest of the paperwork. If I killed a guy, where would I hide the body? he thought to himself.
With that distraction, he didn't notice the movement on his hand for about a minute. When one of the two bumped up against a thumb, he glanced down in surprise. To the look of things, Sam was attempting to put Jacob in a headlock. Both of them were hampered by the strange composition of the surface they were on, resulting in neither of them being able to catch the other off guard.
Dean pursed his lips to try and hide a smile at his brothers. "Do I need to separate you two?" he asked sternly, failing to hide his amusement at the entire situation and tempted to pinch one of them by the back of their jacket. "I've got enough pockets to keep you both in a time out if I need to."
Since they were right next to his chest, Dean's voice resonated loudly enough to catch Jacob off guard. It was barely a lapse, but it was enough to give Sam the upper hand for a moment and succeed in getting his arm around Jacob's neck in a lock. Jacob paused, huffing in frustration and wishing he could turn his head to give Sam a flat look.
As it was, he glanced up at Dean and waved him off. "Nah, man, we're good. Do we have an idea on where to find the angry boyfriend?"
After asking the question, Jacob resumed his mock struggle with Sam, pushing his arm out of the way with unusual strength. It was enough to duck out of the lock and escape Sam's grasp. Ever since he'd started to notice that unusual strength, restraining him had become less and less of a possibility, at least among people their size. Sam was very strong, too, and could probably hold Jacob up by the back of his hoodie, but Jacob could lift even more.
Dean shook his head ruefully, watching Sam recover from Jacob's escape and send one last shove in his direction. It ended with Jacob's hair being ruffled. The sight of them goofing off on his hand was enough to bring a warm feeling to his chest, one he'd lacked for years with Sam presumed dead.
Now, not only did he have Sam back, he also had adopted Jacob, and they clearly weren't bothered by the fact that he could hold them in one hand. They trusted him, and that's all that mattered.
Dean cleared his head, focusing on the case instead to keep his mind off the past. He gestured with his free hand at a picture frame sitting on the desk. "Turns out daddy dearest has a hunting cabin not far from here. If I was going to hide a body, I know where I'd go."
A/N:
After all that time Sam spent being Jacob's big brother, he's gotta get used to having his own big brother around again! ;P He's once again the little brother.
And Jacob has two overprotective dorks for brothers.
Next: November 13th, 2016
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