The most recent killing had happened in the locked office of a small company renting out one floor of a tidy little building in town. If nothing else, it would make parking the Impala inconspicuously a bit easier, and Jacob had a feeling that getting into the place might be simpler than a house, since the front door led to a lobby and not right into a crime scene.
Jacob walked as casually as he could with the knowledge that he had weapons, a fake ID, and two entire people squirreled away on his person. The pocket on the front of his shirt showed no sign of his passengers; at most, they were a fold in the fabric.
Sometimes it still blew his mind that he had somehow ended up working with two mini hunters.
Thanks to the gruesome murder on the top floor of the three-story building, the rest of the rent-a-space offices were sparsely populated. Jacob managed to get by one of them with a nod and a polite smile to a bored receptionist who barely acknowledged him before returning to her magazine. Even his height didn't hold her attention for long.
Might end up having to chat with her later if she was around. Crap. Dealing with a ghost would be simpler. At least it wouldn't want to see an ID before showing up for a fight.
He took the stairs up to give himself time to plan and to avoid getting caught on the elevator camera. "I think the sign on the door said the guy's an appraiser or something," he muttered aloud, knowing Sam and Dean would hear. "Buys and restores and sells antiques I guess."
Down in the pocket, the brothers had spent the time from Jacob stepping out of the car to getting in the stairwell sitting. Each was curled into a corner of their own, balancing out the soft fabric as it was jostled around by thundering footsteps.
Distributing the weight evenly like that had the convenient side effect of reducing the amount they disturbed the shirt fabric, and made it easier to stay undetected. So far, the only excitement they'd had was when Jacob passed by the other people in the building. Sam's shoulders bunched up, feeling a brush over his neck as someone glanced at Jacob. It only lasted a second or two each time, and by the time Jacob was away from those people, it was forgotten.
Sam took the lead, pulling himself up. The jarring footsteps as Jacob took the stairs threatened to toss him off balance, but he clung to the side of the pocket with a white-knuckled death-grip. Dean, looking a little green, stayed down.
With one hand locked onto the edge of the pocket, Sam pushed up on the flap. Between the brothers, he would be able to know if anyone was about to look at him. Over time, the ability was growing stronger and the longer he spent around friendly humans, the more he realized it actually differed, depending on the human and the circumstances.
If a person glanced in his general direction, it felt like nothing more than an absent chill across his neck. Goosebumps and the hairs raised, Sam used to brush off the sensation before he knew what it was telling him. Direct eye contact from friendly humans like Jacob or Chase sharpened the impression, putting weight on his neck.
Neutral humans, or people like Bobby Loran, who could be classed as purposely dangerous, gave him a feeling of burning. It hurt, it sent pain down his nerves just like a hot brand pressed against his skin, and it took time to wear off.
Sam never wanted to find out what would happen if he was seen by too many people like that, or for extended periods of time, like if he was trapped in a cage with nowhere to go.
None of those feelings touched Sam when he peered out of the pocket, and he shifted it just enough to glance up at Jacob. "Do you think anyone's up there right now?" Sam hissed up, hoping Jacob would hear. He didn't want to risk his voice being too loud and getting him caught. "We can scope out the office better if we split."
Jacob glanced down. He could only see Sam's face peering out at him, and had to assume Dean was avoiding the view to the floor. He couldn't blame the guy, though he still didn't regret the choice to take the stairs over the elevator. Jacob was distinctive enough without making himself easier to spot. From the looks of things, people didn't use the stairwell often. Dust had gathered in a thin layer over the least-walked parts of the steps.
"I didn't see many cars outside," he muttered in answer, just as cautious as Sam. Even though nothing significant had happened yet, Jacob's nerves were at the ready. "Once I get inside the door I'll know if there's anyone around, but with the boss dead I'm betting any secretaries are on vacation."
He continued the trek up the stairs, watching around cautiously. He'd made sure to grab an EMF meter from the trunk of the Impala before heading up. He wished he'd had the handy device back on their first salt and burn. He might have been able to watch closer for the vengeful little spirit, and Dean might not have come so close to drowning in a bathtub.
Hindsight was 20/20. Somehow, they'd all lived to fight another day. Each time Jacob went on a hunt, he learned a little more about the trade. So far, it had been enough to keep all of them alive.
The door at the top of the stairs had one window in it. Jacob tilted his head slightly to peer inside; none of the lights were on, and the only thing illuminating the third floor of the building was the windows with their half-drawn shades.
Stacks of boxes and bags lined the narrow hallway, along with some dusty cabinets and old wrecked furniture. Some of the open office doors revealed glimpses of more junk piles within the extra space. Jacob could see the yellow tape marking an X over the room at the end of the hall, but other than that the place had the look of a packed attic.
He tried the door, but it was locked. Jacob fished in his pocket for his lockpicks, ready to give the task a try. One last glance through the small window revealed that the place truly appeared empty. No one peered around a doorframe to investigate his footsteps up the stairs. In the short hall, the dust hardly seemed to notice he was there. Motes hung in the light like silence in the air. It's not creepy or anything, nah.
While Jacob was working, the pocket shifted again. This time, with the stairs over and done with, Dean joined Sam in pushing up the pocket flap so they could see out. They could hear Jacob fumbling around his pockets from their hiding place, but in the dark, cramped confines of a pocket had no way of knowing what he was up to. They could just feel the shirt move around them.
From the pocket, they had a bird's eye view as Jacob started in on the lock. Since their first b&e with the teenager, he'd practiced hard with Dean to be able to pick a lock without any help. Sam had joined in on a few lessons, practicing with paper clips while Jacob used the pick and torque wrench more adeptly every time.
It was a good thing his stepdad, the cop didn't know what they were teaching Jacob.
"Guess you don't need my help this time," Dean chuckled as he saw the lock click into place, though he could feel a wistfulness at the thought. He hoped that Jacob would always need them around and despised the idea of losing his usefulness.
Jacob grinned proudly, glancing down at his pocket while he stowed away the small tools that seemed so tiny in his hands. "This time," he said back. Dean and Sam always had more to teach him. He would always be ready to learn. He'd improved a lot, but some locks were tricky enough that his size really got in the way.
The door squeaked as he pulled it open, cheap hinges doing the bare minimum of work to hold it up. As he stepped into the cramped hallway and observed the dusty antiques around them, he noted an old brass lock on a cabinet that was missing its side panel. They might have more luck with locks like that if Dean just stuck his arm in and pushed on the tumblers himself. If they didn't have a case to work, Jacob would be tempted to try to convince Dean to attempt it.
"Where did you guys wanna start looking? Should we get past the police tape first or save that 'til after we've checked some of these other rooms?" He looked down at his pocket, pausing as the door swung slowly shut behind him. Motes of dust filled the air, swirling away from him as his bulky presence intruded on their space.
Dean tried to wave some of the dust away, but didn't make a noticeable impact on the small cloud. "We should save that for last," he said knowingly. "Get a good look at the area, make sure there aren't other hot spots, then scope out the scene of the crime. It'll be good to have a handle on the battlefield in case you get jumped."
For himself, Sam was steadily scanning the walls around them. Between the brothers, he'd proved to be the best at finding places to slip into the walls, so by unspoken agreement he always kept a sharp watch. They didn't always need to split up from Jacob like that, but it was good to be prepared if the eventuality came up. There was always the possibility of a witch operating behind the scenes as well, making it only seem like a spirit killed the victims. Hexbags were best placed in hard-to-find places, small corners, and inside of walls.
Which just happened to be Sam and Dean's specialty.
"Fair enough," Jacob conceded after only a short pause. Any help he could get was welcome; the thought of doing the hunting job alone, while at his skill level, was terrifying. Sam and Dean were already familiar with the dangers when the curse hit them; even Sam had more background in it when he was ten than Jacob did now, at almost 19. If the cramped office became a battlefield, as Dean put it, he'd need his backup at the ready.
"Door number one, it is," he mused as he crossed the threshold into the first office-turned-storeroom. He paused just inside, squinting around in the dim light coming in through the grimy window. That wasn't the only glass coated with dirt and dust; the room had several boxes with the tops open revealing the chipped or stained glassware within.
"This guy had more crap around than anyone'd know what to do with," Jacob commented as he lifted a hand to his pocket, ready to give the brothers a platform out so they could do their own investigating while Jacob tried not to knock everything over.
"Good places to hide, though," Sam commented as he scrambled up onto Jacob's hand. Turning, he hauled Dean up behind him, giving his older brother a brief second with his legs kicking in midair before he set him down on Jacob's broad palm.
There was no point in missing opportunities like that, especially since it had been a few weeks since Sam could tease Dean.
"Y'know, if there's a place to find food around here, there could be people living in the walls," Dean added, only pausing for a second to brush himself off after his jacket was rumpled by Sam's annoying habit of picking him up. He only allowed one brief glare at Sam before he glanced around.
Jacob didn't bother trying to hide his smirk. It had been a while since he'd seen Dean picked up like a kitten, just one-handed by Sam. Their entertaining banter was back to the way it was, and he was glad for it. Sam was practically exuberant.
"Hey, if there are witnesses on your side of things, I don't even have to interview the secretary downstairs," he quipped. Not only would the brothers be able to get what leads they could, but Jacob probably couldn't hope to talk to any littles around. He was too big for them to trust him.
Wary eyes watched closely. The human with the thunderous footsteps and the rumbling voice had been speaking to someone after all. Rather than to himself, like previously assumed. It was a shame he was still speaking in the wrong language. His words were, literally and linguistically, over the head of the one watching from the shadows across the room.
The human, a living tower built with muscle and little else, crouched down carefully with his eyes on his hand. Not one, but two people stood there, right on his palm. Two of what appeared to be miniature humans.
Bizarre, certainly. Familiar, obviously. But not what the watcher concerned himself with.
That human stomping right in had interrupted a very important investigation. The one watching knew that his companion had to be keeping an eye on the intruders, as well. She might know a better way to proceed. With one last sour look thrown at the newcomers, he slipped back into the shadows between two boxes to return to her before making any plans.
Dean was the first to step down from the hand as Jacob flattened it against the ground. "Well, if there are, we better make sure Godzilla doesn't go scaring them off," he reminded everyone. The fact that they'd arrived with the human wouldn't play in their favor if anyone was around. Dean's smooth talking and Sam's dimples would have to be put to their proper use. Not even Walt was immune to the brothers working together like that.
Sam followed right behind. He never reacted to the unknown set of eyes on him. There wasn't even a whisper of a chill against his back to add to the neutral brush of Jacob's watchful, loyal gaze. "The chances of there actually being people in here are pretty slim, y'know. It's too high off the ground to be convenient."
"Anything's possible," Dean argued stubbornly back as they started on their way towards the boxes, aiming at a crack between them to start searching. He glanced behind at Jacob and made a shooing motion. "Who'd expect people like us to be hanging out with a hunter?"
"We're the ones who helped him become a hunter," Sam said in exasperation.
"Exactly! That's my point! "
Jacob watched them walk away for a second more, struck by the fact that he'd just been shoo'd with a hand so small he could barely see it from where he knelt. He glanced at the boxes they aimed for, cliffs of old, dusty cardboard that they'd never hope to move on their own. Jacob had spent some time at their scale, and with an idea of how that dark space between the boxes would look on their scale, it made their investigations far more adventurous than his own.
He scooted back to push to a stand, ever mindful of the stacks of miscellany around him. They already almost disappeared from his sight as they dwindled away. His height definitely drove home how different he was from them.
He was just glad they'd decided to let him hunt with them anyway. When he'd first met them, he never would have seen himself standing there in what was still a crime scene, pulling a homemade EMF meter out of one of his pockets.
"I'll scan some of the stuff out in the hall, see if maybe our ghost is attached to something out there," he told the seemingly-empty room. Jacob knew better than to think they might miss any of his words. He had earned his Godzilla nickname from Dean for a reason. "If you need me, that's where I'll be ... or just knock something over, and I'll probably hear it."
His steps, still thudding in the floor despite his practice with avoiding exactly that, carried him back out the door of the small office, leaving Sam and Dean to their work.
Sam coughed when the dust was jostled free and rose into the air from Jacob's thudding footsteps. "I think they need a better maid around here," he managed as he waved a hand in front of his face.
"I think you're getting soft," Dean shot right back without a beat, leading the way through the thin corridor formed by the boxes. It was a vulnerable position for them to be in if they didn't know the human that was in the building with them. All it would take was a momentary shift in position for the towering cliff of boxes to their side to crush them between relentless walls of cardboard. They might be strong enough to dangle each other like kittens, but they certainly did not have the strength needed to stop a cliff from moving.
After the banter died off on the still air, they moved on in silence, working their way through a maze of boxes. Darkness didn't hold them back. Years of living in the walls of a motel left both brothers with a keen nightvision. Walt Watch could see in the dark even better, but Jacob's brief time at their size proved just how good theirs was. The poor guy needed one of the brothers with him at all times if he was trying to travel anywhere in the walls, and face it. Walking out in the open in a house of humans just wasn't safe if they were down on the floor.
Dean came up to a four-way intersection of boxes and took a sharp right, heading for the wall of the building he could see in the distance.
The dusty air fell still again once Jacob was gone, and the brothers were left to the stale scent of cardboard and the contents of the boxes. Old markings from permanent markers graffiti'd the cliff walls around them, multiple designations for the boxes crossed off and reassigned before they became fixtures in the old office.
The meager light from above had to slip past corners of old torn newspapers, crumpled and wrapped around some of the contents of the stacked boxes. Wherever the paper peeked out of the boxes, the light broke and the shadows only became murkier the further they trekked from the entrance to their would-be maze.
In the heavy silence that fell over the room with Jacob gone, not even the building creaked. The AC was off, so no air moved. Everything but Sam and Dean was still. The quiet was so sure, with all sound muffled around them, that it was nearly a physical weight.
Until, with the rasping sound of paper against paper, something darted along the wall, crossing past the opening that they aimed for.
A/N:
I love how Jacob's big fear here is... He might have to talk to people omg.
Never mind the possible murderous ghosts and everything.
And what's that at the end?
Next: March 15th, 2023 at 9PM
Adding in this author's note for all my followers here, and will keep it on all chapters going forward:
If the worst happens and fanfiction shuts down, you can find all my stories on both archive of our own and deviantart, posted under the nightmares06 account. You can also find our story tumblr, which contains a ton of information and answers that are only posted on that site, along with artwork for the stories and future plans we have. That can be found under the brothersapart tumblr account. I can't put links in chapters, but googling "Brothersapart tumblr" should bring it right up!
