Oscar's eyes were wide after the exchange. Dean may have poked Sam hard enough to knock him over, but there was definitely a careful edge to every movement he made with his hand so close to his little little brother. It wasn't a gentleness he would have thought possible from a human, just from how big they were and what his mom always told him.

Even when Dean had scooped Oscar off the ground, he hadn't actually been that rough with him. He may have trapped the much smaller kid and hoisted him up quickly, but he hadn't squashed Oscar in his hands. Oscar had expected it every second he'd been trapped, but it never happened.

Clearly Dean's hands were safer than they looked.

He recovered from the shock, holding his safety pin closer to his chest. A challenge still hung in the air, and Oscar was sorely tempted to answer it. After all, he really could climb very well on his pin and thread. It was kind of a skill that was imperative for him to have, making it all the more surprising that Sam couldn't do it.

While he stifled a yawn with the back of his hand, he got an idea.

"Um, I could show you how to do it sometime, Sam. If you wanna see," he offered, holding up his own pin to indicate what he meant. He could do his best to teach Sam how to get around like he did. "But I should maybe go home. I-if I can ..." His voice became a little timid again. He didn't think they'd stop him from leaving, but Dean very much could. It was better to be sure.

"If you have to go," Sam said, disappointed his new friend would be leaving. "But don't forget your chocolate!"

He picked himself off the bed and dashed over to where the bag of Hershey Kisses was sitting. His overenthusiastic sprint came to a crashing halt when his foot caught on the edge of the bag, sending him sprawling inside with the silver-wrapped candies. Oscar remained where Sam had left him and had to hide his amused grin behind his hands.

Dean tried to hide a snort and failed. "Good job, pipsqueak." He reached over and plucked out a squirming Sam who had his arms wrapped around one of the chocolates. It was easily the size of his chest, and he clutched it tight as he was lifted up into the air.

Oscar's amusement fell away into shock at the sight of how unbothered Sam was by this. The other kid barely even flinched when a thumb and a finger, both as big as he was if not bigger, closed around his waist.

They made it look normal. These two didn't act like humans at all.

Dean gently placed Sam in his other hand and held him out next to Oscar. "I think you're gonna need some practice before you go running any races on these beds," he snickered.

Sam stuck out the candy he'd acquired, offering it to Oscar while he made a face up at Dean. "Come back soon?" he asked with wide and hopeful eyes.

Oscar's eyes were wide as well, but with awe and surprise instead. The bundle Sam held out was enormous. The silvery foil glittered at him, and its paper tab at the top was slightly crumpled from Sam falling on it. That was a lot of chocolate. Oscar could even smell a sweet aroma drifting off the candy, and his intrigue only grew. When he got it home, he might have to try just a little piece before bed.

He got to his feet hastily, closing up his safety pin and gathering the bunched-up thread as he did. "I'll come back," he promised. If nothing else, he had to help Sam learn how to climb a rope. He couldn't fathom someone going around at their size not knowing how to climb a rope. "I can bring you a pin to climb with."

He took the offered candy in his arms, raising his eyebrows at the weight. It was huge to him, and he had some difficulty shifting it to just one arm. With a hand free, he tried to shove things out of the way in his well-worn cloth bag, but no matter what he did there simply wasn't room in there. The fabric wouldn't stretch at all, and he didn't want to take out anything else he'd found.

Oscar's face warmed with a sheepish look yet again and he closed the bag. He shifted the candy in his arms again, one hand still clutching his pin and thread. His mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown for a second as he figured out how he'd get down; he could lower the candy, or probably even toss it over, and then climb. Those were the best options that presented themselves. He inched towards the edge of the bed, craning his neck to try to peek over the side without getting too close.

Dean watched Oscar edge towards the side of the bed and felt a familiar jolt of worry inside when he saw just how high up the little guy would be if he fell. He felt that same worry with Sam every time his small brother wandered close to the edge of a table or bed. No matter how many times Sam said he was fine. Dean couldn't imagine how much stress he'd live in if Sam ever started trying to climb around the room.

Shifting so the hand holding Sam was close to his chest, Dean held his other hand out in front of Oscar and offered it to the little kid. "Here, hop on," he suggested. "I mean, you wouldn't be up there without me, right? I can at least give you a ride to where you want to go."

Oscar leaned away from the offered hand as though it were putting off a withering heat. It could spring up and surround him in seconds if Dean wanted to catch him again. The fact that he didn't might never cease to amaze Oscar. In a world bigger than he could fathom, surrounded by people that outsized him by over twenty times, he'd found a human that didn't want to take advantage of his size. That actually helped him.

With that realization, the frighteningly huge world seemed just a little smaller, more manageable.

"Th-thanks, Dean," he replied shyly, deciding he should give him the benefit of the doubt. Sam stood easily on the other hand, looking perfectly at ease. Protected. Safe.

A few shuffling, hesitant steps later, and Oscar took his first step onto a human hand by himself. He hugged the Hershey kiss and his safety pin a little closer as his cloth shoes sank a little bit into the skin. He wobbled a little before making it to the center of Dean's palm. There he stood very rigid in hopes that he wouldn't fall off the side.

"I-I wanna get to the vent," he announced, nodding towards the wall where Dean had caught him. "Um. Please," he added with an embarrassed smile, remembering his manners.

"No problem, Oz," Dean said reassuringly. He slowly got up from his crouch on the floor. Both hands were brought together against his chest for while he walked. He'd learned with Sam that it wasn't easy to stay standing on a hand while that hand's owner was taking a walk. Sam had tumbled into his palm more than once, and with the hands braced against his chest there was less of a chance that either of the kids would slip off the edge.

The moment the hands were close together, Sam hopped over to the one that Oscar was standing on. Dean took advantage of a free hand and curled it around the edge like he'd normally do with Sam. From there it was only a few steps before he was kneeling by the vent.

Dean flattened his hand on the ground for Oscar and peered into the dark tunnel. "You live down here?" he asked curiously. His voice echoed back at him from the depths of the motel.

Oscar stumbled off of Dean's hand, releasing a sigh to be on solid ground again before he addressed the question. He stood near the dark entrance to the motel's ventilation system with the chocolate still clutched in his arms and glanced between Sam and Dean both. He'd avoided the subject before because he wasn't supposed to talk about where his folk lived. He'd always been told not to, but he got a feeling that even if Dean wanted to go looking for other people, Sam wouldn't let him.

He shuffled one foot on the thick carpet fibers and nodded. "I gotta walk a little ways first. But my house is in the walls. It's not safe to sleep out in the rooms and it's too scary to live outside." He looked over his shoulder into the depths of the walls. A distant metallic creak echoed out of the vent from the building settling. It was a familiar sound, more comforting than ominous.

He angled his gaze back up at Dean. "Please don't tell other humans? If someone came looking we'd all be in trouble." And not just Oscar and the others in the Knight's Inn. Anyone that might live in other buildings' walls would be at risk if word got out. They were defenseless, just trying to get by in a looming world.

Dean stopped trying to peer into the dark entrance. "We won't tell anyone," he swore.

Sam picked it up from there. "Dad says it's dangerous for anyone else to know about me, because I'm so small now, and you don't have Dean and Dad watching out for you. We won't get you in trouble." He grinned widely down at Oscar from his raised platform on Dean's palm. "I can't wait to see you again! We just have to go to school tomorrow, but after that we'll be in the room the rest of the night."

Dean pursed his lips as he lifted Sam back up to his chest. "Y'know, we could always just skip…" he lead in.

"Dean, you said you'd go! Otherwise I'd have no way to get to class!"

Dean let out a sigh. "Yeah, I know. You can't blame a guy for trying." Being stuck in class for most of the day with a bunch of kids he'd never see again after a month wasn't exactly the highlight of his life. Sam, on the other hand, couldn't seem to get enough, to Dean's regret. Especially since without him, there was no way for the downsized boy to even attend.

His eyes flicked over to Oscar. "You watch out for yourself, okay?"

Oscar nodded emphatically. "I will," he assured them, shifting the huge piece of chocolate in his arms. They had no way of knowing this, but it was going to be the most food he'd brought home all at once in a very long time.

Oscar wasn't sure what to call his luck, so he settled on "interesting." Capture by a human could have gone a lot worse than it had. He could be trapped in a cage or a bag by now, or he could even have been carried off to be shown to even more gigantic, scary humans.

Instead, it seemed he'd made a couple friends. One of whom was a gigantic teenager that refused to get his name right.

"I'll come back tomorrow. After ... school." The word fell hesitantly from his mouth, considering he'd never had occasion to say it. Or even think about it, really. Oscar knew his numbers well enough, and he could read decently well, and it was all he really needed. It was all he really had access to, living in the walls of a motel.

With that, he turned and pushed his chocolate through the vent before climbing through himself. His tiny frame easily fit, and in seconds he'd gathered up the Hershey Kiss and dashed away down a wide hallway formed by the metallic air conditioning.

His footsteps hardly made a sound as they receded, fading into the motel's murky depths.

A/N

Oscar has a lump of chocolate the size of his torso. I would like to have chocolate this size as well P:

Wee sweetie was afraid he wouldn't be allowed to leave T^T

If you have a prompt idea for the story, please tumble on over to the tumblr and drop it in my askbox.

Next chapter December 2nd.