Between the brothers, Sam was the closest to Bobby when he made his break for freedom. Sam might not be interested in getting too close to Bobby during Dean's mind games with the teen, but he had no problem making sure the kid didn't try and pull any escape plans on them. It wasn't likely he'd get far with Jacob around, but the thought of him bumbling his way into the walls and getting into trouble was on Sam's mind as he jumped into action.

Sam's long legs caught him up to Bobby in record time. Getting a hand on the blond teenager's shoulder, Sam wheeled him around, using his own force against him. The inertia Bobby had carried him through right up until Sam let go and sent him stumbling back towards Dean.

"Like I was saying…" Dean said as he strolled casually over to Bobby and grabbed his shirt. "You should try and remember who's calling the shots here."

If Dean didn't have a grip on Bobby's shirt, he might have fallen to his knees like he did in the pocket. The afternoon would be a blur of adrenaline and fear, at this rate. He stumbled and tried to twist away again, and again he had no luck despite grabbing Dean's arm with both hands. He wrenched at it, but Dean was just too strong. Bobby's arms strained with effort and he had nothing to show for it.

"Alright, fuck, I get it," Bobby groused, angling an attempt at a glare up at Dean despite his fear. His heart was pounding and he wanted to buckle to the floor in a heap, but he couldn't. He couldn't just break and cower like they wanted him to, not completely.

"Just let me go! I get it, you're in charge now, it's fuckin' great," he demanded, his voice wound up with nerves. He avoided stammering while inside, his voice quavered. Don't hurt me. "What do you want from me?"

"Hmm." Dean pretended to think that over while he walked them both back towards Jacob's looming form. Nothing Bobby did could slow his stride down and he staggered several times on the way. Dean could be a statue compared to the teenager. "What I really want is for you to never have grabbed us that day. Since I can't have that, I guess I'll have to settle for the next best thing."

There was no mistaking their destination as Dean brought Bobby ever closer to his former best friend.

Jacob.

Neither brother felt an ounce of fear in the looming teenager's presence, a stark contrast to Bobby. Jacob wasn't even attempting to tone down his natural intimidation like normal. He sat casually, but with a distinct air that said he knew exactly how tall he was, and he didn't care to diminish it. He was big and unapologetic, dominating the would-be skyline of the room.

Just the way they wanted him.

Dean shoved Bobby, sending him stumbling towards Jacob. "Now, you can see exactly how we felt that day you grabbed us."

Jacob knew his cue. Before Bobby stood up straight to ask Dean what he meant, his hand moved from where he'd rested it on his knee. Bobby sucked in a gasp and stumbled backwards with his hands held up defensively, but didn't stop Jacob from pinching around his tiny waist with his thumb and first finger.

Bobby's heart fluttered and sank with growing dread as Jacob's brown eyes flicked to Dean, as if reading a cue from him, before hoisting him off the floor.

Bobby kicked and thrashed as the ground rushed away from him, and put his hands on Jacob's fingertips in an attempt to pry them apart. The texture of whorled fingerprints met his palms, as unique to Jacob as the various small scars on his hands from the honest labor he'd done before meeting Sam and Dean. After several seconds of wind tugging at him and gravity trying to yank him back down to the ground, Bobby was held up at Jacob's eye level like before.

This time, there was no amused smirk on his face. This time, he wasn't entertained at all, but instead looked almost put off by something. Bobby couldn't tell. Usually he could read Jacob like a book, but fear and confusion jumbled any signs he might normally be able to see. That silence weighed on him and added to the pressure of the gargantuan room, more open space around him than there should be. There was nothing supporting his feet.

"Jacob, what-" Bobby began, but Jacob interrupted him by adjusting his grip. His hand curled around Bobby's small form so that he was engulfed in a fist from the waist down. Bobby planted his hands on one knuckle and tried to push himself free, but Jacob's grasp was even tougher to escape than Dean's, and Dean had already been impossible.

Jacob peered at him critically for another second before very pointedly turning his focus back down to Dean. Bobby twisted around with a look of shock on his face. Dean was standing down on the floor, the size of one of Jacob's fingers, and yet Jacob was waiting for his instruction on what to do next, completely ignoring the prisoner in his fist.

Dean watched Bobby's struggles with a completely blank look on his face, hiding any trace of the emotions he felt at the sight of his former captor and tormentor finding his role reversed in a complete and total fashion.

When both humans turned their gazes down at him, he didn't let anything show on his face to give his plans away. Instead, he stretched out a hand, holding it up so even Jacob would be able to make it out. Dean knew how small he was compared to a human, how small his hand would look. It could be hard for Jacob to make out what they were doing from time to time.

This time, Dean didn't want either human to miss a single move.

Slowly, he took his open hand and curled the fingers inexorably inwards, not stopping until he held a fist out in front of his face.

Jacob nodded once and Bobby's look of confusion only deepened. He looked back and forth between Jacob and Dean, trying to suss out what communication had just passed between them. "Jacob, what..." he began, before whipping his gaze down to Dean. "What the hell does that mean?" The pitch of his voice angled upwards, the sound of desperation.

His answer came shortly after. Jacob's grip shifted around him, and Bobby let out a yelp of surprise as he slipped further into the giant fist around him. Jacob loosened his grasp just enough for Bobby to fall into it. Bobby bit back a yelp as Jacob's thumb curled towards him. He kicked and squirmed and even shot Jacob more pleading looks, but that thumb settled over his chest, almost hiding it all on its own. It dragged him to the center of Jacob's palm without hesitation or difficulty.

An enormous pulse pounded behind his back, slow and steady. Unconcerned. Bobby squirmed and stared in terror up at the person who used to be his best friend. Jacob frowned down at him, and then his fist started to close. Bobby realized what was happening.

He remembered the feeling of desperate but ultimately useless struggles against his hand as he closed his own fist. Dean had been powerless then. He was making Bobby powerless now.

Jacob closed his fist one finger at a time, taking things painstakingly slowly. After his legs were trapped, Bobby tried to twist his upper body out of the grasp closing in. Another finger closed around him and his arms were pinned. Finally, with his index finger and his thumb finishing off the motion in imitation of Dean's from moments before, Jacob concealed Bobby in his fist with enough pressure that he could feel every tiny struggle and every panicked word was muffled.


With their plan in place, the Impala eagerly races back towards Carlisle to put it in action. Jacob looks forward to safely testing out the hexbag, but there's something that bothers him and nags at him. He would shrug uncomfortably if his shoulders weren't occupied.

He glances up to meet Dean's gaze in the rearview mirror before averting his eyes back to the road.

"It's a good plan, dude," he says, a weak smirk on his face. "I'll play whatever part you need. But, uh. I don't ..." he pauses and takes a slow breath, willing himself to admit what's on his mind. He's the one who suggested this, but he can't ignore his chief concern in the wake of their fun. "I don't want to actually hurt someone, if I don't have to. I can't take advantage of my size like that." With the words out, he shuts his mouth and clenches his jaw. Jacob doesn't want to rain on Dean's parade, but he has to make his stance known.

Dean listens to Jacob's words, and from his perch on the teen's shoulder he can see the muscles flex in Jacob's neck as that massive jaw clenches. It's almost funny, some days, to consider that he and Sam are small enough to curl up in Jacob's mouth yet the teenager still listens to everything they say.

Like now.

It's obvious that some of the uncertainty left in the plan makes Jacob uncomfortable, and Dean treats this with the seriousness it deserves. He puts a hand against Jacob's neck. It isn't much, and Dean knows all Jacob will feel is a tickle, but it's what he can do.

"Jacob," Dean says solemnly, glancing towards the rearview mirror, his only chance of catching Jacob's eyes from his shoulder. "I might push you hard, you and Sam both, but I will

never ask you to do anything you're uncomfortable with. If it ever comes down to it, I'll be the one to pull that trigger." He means every word. Despite the fact that he stands smaller than a finger, Dean would do what he had to if it meant keeping a scar like that from Jacob or Sam's soul.

In this case, though, he doesn't think that'll be necessary. "Today, I think all we'll need is some good old fashioned scare tactics. We don't need to harm a hair on his head to make him take us seriously, not if we handle it right."

Jacob smirks faintly, and then nods. "I think we can make that work," he replies. As if in demonstration, one of his hands flexes on the wheel. He knows that once they get Bobby where they want him, his hands will look ridiculously big next to him.

Jacob's never had a problem looking scary at his size, and he knows the brothers can attest. This time, though, he doesn't think they'll mind if he looms a little.


Bobby's pitiful pleas didn't quite make it to Jacob's ears. He tilted his head to concentrate, but most of them were still muffled or just gibberish in Bobby's panic.

With the tables turned on him, all of Bobby's power was taken away. Jacob had him trapped and there was no way for Bobby to know what Dean's signal really meant, and for all he knew Jacob was going to crush him. The knowledge that Jacob could ramped up Bobby's terror with each passing second.

In the spirit of their scare tactics, Jacob drew upon a memory that still made his blood boil if he thought about it too much. "I dunno what you're so worried about, Bobby. I didn't feel a snap, so you must be fine, right?"

The squirming paused for a second, and this time Jacob heard the faintest "Oh God," filter out of his fist. "Oh God, Jacob, please, I'm sorry, let me out, I'm sorry!"

Dean watched silently as Jacob did to Bobby exactly what they'd been through. Trapped. Helpless. Dean's own words echoed in his mind from those moments where Bobby had tried to bargain with Jacob to just keep one of them. When Dean himself was trapped in a hand just like Bobby now.

How about I separate you from your arm, you sick fuck!

In those heated moments, if they'd been the same size, Dean might have gone through with that threat. Watching Sam collapse and get tucked away out of sight had infuriated Dean. Beyond infuriated Dean. His brother, whom he'd spent his entire life protecting, dropped in a pocket like some prize to claim...

Then, of course, he himself was almost crushed. There was no way of knowing what would have happened without Jacob's timely intervention.

Dean gave the silence enough time to stretch out around them all, then spoke up again, raising his voice in the hope that Bobby would make it out through the wall of flesh that separated them. "Oh, I don't think Jacob is the one you owe that apology to. What do you think?"

Bobby squirmed in Jacob's hands while he parsed the words. There were tears in his eyes from the fear, and some of them escaped onto his cheeks. His entire body was so constricted in Jacob's grasp that the tears didn't get far before simply smearing on his face. Bobby felt every ridge in his former friend's handprint, every callus on his palm.

Dean's words finally made it through and his stomach clenched. "D-Dean," he realized, his voice tremulous and fearful even as he tried to move his arms, his legs, anything.

"I'm sorry," he said, louder this time. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean ... I was... shit." He stammered around the words like every excuse left a bad taste in his mouth. He remembered a brief flicker of remorse igniting in him when he saw what he'd done to Sam, only to be snuffed out again in his determination to have the last word. He'd felt a tiny bone snap all because he was careless.

He squirmed uncomfortably in Jacob's grip, knowing with a new certainty that the difference between a few light bruises and a broken spine was just a twitch. A careless movement from Jacob, a person he had known since they were in middle school. Jacob held so much power in just one hand. Bobby was useless against it. He couldn't see past what little light managed to leak into Jacob's fist from outside, but he could still remember the dispassionate look in those eyes.

Jacob wasn't the one calling the shots.

Jacob was the largest person in the room, but he wasn't calling the shots.

Outside the confines of the fist, Jacob watched it intently. Bobby's struggles didn't budge anything an inch. It was still impossible to tell he had a person in there. He glanced down at Dean, questioning with his eyes whether the insistent apologies could be heard.

Dean could hear every word out of Bobby's mouth, even as muffled as those words were in Jacob's grasp. Years of practice helped him to keep his thoughts to himself, even from Sam, the only person who could read him like a book most days. He was a blank slate as he watched a person their size be handled like he was nothing.

Less than nothing. Just like they'd been treated, but without the injuries.

Jacob was as intimidating as he'd ever been, but not towards them. Having him loom overhead didn't bother Dean one bit, and there was no spike of danger for Sam. He was doing it for them, and they appreciated it, knowing it went against his nature.

When remorse, real remorse could be heard uttered from Bobby's lips, Dean glanced up at Jacob. He knew how far to push someone, when to push someone…

And when to stop.

"Let him out," Dean said levelly, "so he can say it to my face. And to Sam. He owes us that much for what he did."

Just like that, Jacob's hand lowered to the floor. He opened his hand slowly so that Bobby slid out of his fist and his shoes touched the ground, but as soon as his hand moved away Bobby collapsed anyway. His legs were too wobbly with fear after the surge of terror with every heartbeat. He shuddered as Jacob's body heat was suddenly gone, and felt the phantom pulse of Jacob's enormous heart.

Bobby brushed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. While there were tears there, he refused to look up, to allow them to see. He couldn't let that slip.

He had been so sure Jacob was going to squeeze just a little tighter. Just enough to break something, like Bobby had done before. He knew they all thought he deserved it.

His focus returned to Dean. The man stood tall and unreadable, just a short distance away. Bobby scooted himself back with the heels of his hands, wary of Jacob's shadow and of Dean's cryptic look.

Jacob was easier to read, the way he loomed over them all, but that didn't help Bobby. All he gained from Jacob's expression was the knowledge that he had no help from him. Jacob wouldn't dictate any of what happened and he wouldn't interfere. Bobby was alone with Dean's verdict.

"Dean, I'm sorry," he murmured weakly. He couldn't take back what he'd done, and a dwindling part of him said he shouldn't have to. His pride had no ground to stand on, and soon even that voice quieted as he shook his head. "I wasn't ... right," he admitted, more remorse slipping into his voice.

Sam came up behind Dean, his expression more empathic for the teenager's position than his older brother's. "It's never too late for a second chance," he said softly, breaking into Dean's staredown with Bobby.

Dean shot him a look, then glanced back at Bobby. Second chances were dear to both brothers' hearts. Without a second chance, they'd be trapped in Trails West, trying to get by just on what they could scrounge up for food. Enough for another day, another week, another month… never completely safe, and no way of knowing if the next day would be their last.

They'd offered Jacob a second chance after his first encounter with them went sideways and upside down, and because of that, they in turn received a second chance of their own. The opportunity to get out of the motel, go find their old friend Bobby, try and be hunters again.

Second chances.

Dean let himself frown in thought, mulling it over. "I don't know if he's earned a second chance, what he did to you, Sammy. But it's your arm, so it's your call."

Sam took a few steps past Dean and crouched down next to Bobby. He offered the teenager a hand. "I think you've paid enough for your mistake, as long as you mean that apology."


A/N:

Dean actually made sure Jacob was okay with a bit of extra looming today beforehand, can't be pushing their big teddy out of his comfort zone.

Unfortunately for Bobby, that is.

Next: April 12th, 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!