While Dean casually strolled across the floor of Jacob's room, Sam dashed past him. Instead of pausing on the hand, he darted across it. Catching a hand in the thick fabric of Jacob's shirt, Sam scaled up the thick, muscular arm. The threads formed handholds that his tiny fingers wound their way into by second nature. He could feel the muscles behind the fabric tense in Jacob's surprise, but the human had learned not to flinch even when they caught him off guard.
Even before Jacob had stumbled upon the brothers, they'd made use of fabric to climb, mostly in the way of the covers that draped off the beds in Trails West. Now, they'd gotten Jacob used to the fact that they were going to use his sleeves as a quick access to his shoulders.
In short order, Sam was perched up on Jacob's shoulder, peering down at Dean with a completely innocent look. "What? You said just like every day!"
Dean gave a huff, stalking the last few inches onto Jacob's hand. "That's not what I meant and you know it!" he snipped, jabbing a finger in Sam's direction. "We're supposed to be helping him adjust!"
"Hey, I saw Dean climb right up to his hand from the floor the first day I met you guys, remember?" Chase cut in. Seeing Sam dart up to Jacob's shoulder was an entirely different story, but it didn't catch him too off guard.
It did illustrate how much faster Sam was. Chase had only met Sam after Bobby Loran broke his arm, and he hadn't done any climbing back then. He'd chilled on Jacob's hand while they all hung out. Chase definitely hadn't seen this side of his personality before, that casual confidence in his climbing, a counterpoint to Dean's caution.
Next, it was Chase's turn to climb aboard Jacob's hand. He peered down at it, noting again that each of Jacob's fingers was bigger than he was. That hand could easily close around him and no one would be able to see him. The knowledge that it wouldn't helped Chase step onto the hand with wobbly balance. Leathery skin supported his featherlight weight, barely giving under his converse shoes. Chase felt a pulse thrumming away beneath his feet, but Jacob kept his hand steady.
As soon as he made it to Jacob's palm with Dean, the fingers curled up behind him like a railing. "Ready?" rumbled out overhead, and Chase looked up to see Jacob watching carefully.
Chase gave him a thumbs-up. "You know it, dude. So ready."
Jacob rolled his eyes, but then he lifted his hand from the floor like a steady elevator platform. Chase braced a hand on one fingertip to keep from falling over, and watched his own feet as gravity tried to knock him down. Before he knew it, the hand was paused in front of a pocket on the front of Jacob's shirt, and the other hand was propping it open.
With them almost up at the same level Sam was perched at, Dean sent him one last glare. "Y'know, you're supposed to be over here with us," he griped in annoyance.
Sam gave him a confident smirk back. "Nah, I think you can handle the pocket without me this time. Besides, Mariana's out, right? Someone should be the lookout for Jacob!"
Dean scoffed, but he focused on the dark opening suspended in front of them. It was a simple matter to swing his legs from the edge of Jacob's hand and drop right in. The bottom of the fabric gave beneath his feet, threatening to knock him over when he landed and surrounding him in the darkness and sounds that were growing more familiar every time they used a pocket for travel.
When he stood, he was just tall enough to see out with Jacob pinching the pocket open. "Well?" Dean prodded Chase. "You comin?' "
Chase raised his eyebrows. "I guess so. I wasn't sure but now you've convinced me," he quipped back. The chest in front of him shifted with a brief chuckle, but Jacob didn't let it shake him too much. With Sam on a shoulder and Dean in his pocket, he could rattle them, and their so-called Godzilla was ever mindful.
"It'll probably be late afternoon or early evening when we get there, so hopefully the pocket's comfy enough for ya," Jacob mused, still waiting patiently.
Chase nodded and sat down at the edge of the hand, scooting forward until he could slide over the side. He gasped in the brief moment of freefall, picturing the steep drop all the way to the floor. Even with much less mass to gain momentum, the fall could break something. Then, before he knew it, he hit the bottom of the pocket with a quiet oof!
"Nailed the landing," he grumbled. He squirmed to right himself and then, like Sam had before but with less casual confidence, used the threads of the pocket to pull himself upright.
Only to find that he wasn't tall enough to peer out like Dean did. "Ahh, dammit," he blurted, though there was a sheepish grin on his face as he reached up to the edge of the pocket to try to pull it down enough to see out.
Dean had to chuckle at that. It was hard to envision one of their humans actually having trouble seeing out of a pocket, but here they were. Chase was too tiny for his head to peek out of the top like the brothers or Jacob could. Even if it was just because Jacob's pockets were bigger than Chase's, it was entertaining.
"Here," Dean offered, grabbing the back of Chase's shirt. It was child's play to haul him up to the edge so he could throw his arms over it. "Lemme give ya a hand. That way we can get this show on the road and everyone can see where our ride's headin.' "
Chase, with his arms hanging over the edge of the pocket, braced his worn converse against the inside so he wouldn't strain himself too much. Dean was fortunate enough that he could just stand in the pocket, and Sam and Jacob would be able to as well, he remembered. Chase was stuck peering around while also half-focused on clinging to the edge so he wouldn't tumble back out of sight.
Jacob was staring straight down, still more than a little amazed by the sight of his best friend for ten years small enough to ride in his pocket. Small enough that he had to throw his arms over the edge to hold himself up high enough to see.
"All set?" he asked, tucking the pocket flap into the pocket in a way that it was behind the two of them without Dean needing to hold it up. It would be easy to fix it if they needed to duck down and hide.
"Yep. Mush, or whatever," Chase quipped, pointing vaguely ahead of them with one hand. It quickly shot back to grip the pocket when Jacob's whole torso swayed. He got his feet under himself and stood, and Chase nearly lost his hold on the pocket.
"Holy shit," Chase breathed. Sam and Dean could deal with that while on Jacob's shoulder. "This is wild."
"Just a day in the life," Dean commented wryly as the ground dropped away from them. Standing straight up, Jacob became a living cliff for the people who were using him for transportation.
When standing at the same scale as everyone else, Jacob edged out Sam in height, who Dean thought was already tall enough on his own. With him returned to his proper Godzilla height, Jacob cut an intimidating figure that would make even Dean nervous if he didn't know the kid, and know just how harmless he was to the smaller people. No one took more care in his movements than Jacob, and Dean was proud of that, especially remembering back that first day they'd encountered each other.
"Who needs a roller coaster when they've got giants around?" Sam quipped from Jacob's shoulder with a smirk of his own, repeating Dean's earlier joke. He had one hand latched onto Jacob's collar and the other hand resting against the side of Jacob's neck for balance.
"You say that, but I can't do loop-the-loops or anything, I just walk around," Jacob quipped with a smirk. Once he was sure he had everything, he turned towards the door to make his way out. He was ever mindful of the small weight on his shoulder and the tickle on his neck, as well as Dean and Chase weighing down his pocket. Chase was hardly enough to make a difference.
"I think that's enough to qualify," Chase quipped. His voice was tight from the clenching of his stomach, after nearly losing his grip on the edge of the pocket. He let out a terse sigh and adjusted his grip again. "If you try a loop-the-loop I might have to kick your ass. Just sayin'."
Jacob left his room and didn't bother to hide his smirk. "That almost sounded like a challenge," he remarked, even as he reached the stairs down to the ground floor. Despite his banter, he took care not to jostle his small passengers the best he could as he made his way down the stairs. Chase's death grip on the pocket fooled no one.
"Jesus, everything looks so different," Chase muttered. He stared wide-eyed at a hall table near the front door, one he'd known since before Jacob's family even moved to this house. Mariana kept a junk drawer in it and always seemed to find what she needed in there. Now, Chase could hide in it. "Except not so much…"
Jacob stopped with his hand on the doorknob to glance down. "Hey, don't worry. We're all watching each other's backs here."
"That's right," Dean agreed wholeheartedly. They watched Jacob's back, and he paid them back in kind. If not for him, Dean might not be around after that first vengeful spirit lashed out, tossing him and another girl into the raging waters of a bathtub. Jacob didn't think twice before pulling them out of the bath, and he'd coaxed Melanie into helping out despite her fear of capture by an absolutely gigantic human.
Watching out for Jacob was exciting all on its own, considering how huge he was. When Dean had found Jacob hexed and huddled behind towering furniture to hide from his family, it sent a shock through them. They didn't want the human they were training to end up like them… especially not on a case. It would be their fault.
"You can help us keep an eye on Godzilla here," Dean finished brightly. "He's a handful, but I think we can manage it."
"Hey, I'm not that bad," Jacob chided, with a smile on his face. He opened the door and stepped out of his home, locking it behind himself and always alert for someone watching him. With Sam as his lookout, he didn't have as much chance of noticing someone first, but that didn't mean he could slack off. He didn't need to expose the three of them just because he was complacent.
As it happened, there wasn't anyone paying attention. A neighbor across the street was busy pulling weeds by their house, bent over and intently working away at their flower bed. They didn't even notice when Jacob opened and closed the door of the Impala.
By then, Chase's eyes were as wide as they could go. Everything around him, the trees, the road, the houses, had ballooned to impossible proportions. The sky was always far away, but now it felt even farther because of how much open space there was around them. His shoulders hunched again and there was a strong temptation to let himself fall into the pocket. The only thing that prevented it was knowing they'd never let him live it down if he hid.
And the car. "Jesus. I drove this thing? How did I drive this thing?"
Jacob shoved the key into the ignition. "By moving the seat so far up I'd have lost circulation in my legs if I hadn't remembered to move it back." He had to smirk as Chase's retort was lost in the initial rumble of the Impala's engine as he started her up.
"Like you'd even fit in the car with the seat that close," Dean said as he let go of the edge of the pocket. With the flap tucked down behind them, it made a comfortable cushion to lean against without sinking all the way into the pocket for the ride. He didn't want to leave Chase sitting down on his own, but he was used to sitting up on a shoulder.
They watched from Jacob's pocket and shoulder as the teenager pulled away from his house. None of them could hope to budge the massive car, and it was always with wide eyes that the brothers got to see a steering wheel bigger than their home in the walls, manipulated so easily.
"Oh, Chase," Dean said as a thought occurred to him. Out of everyone in the car, the tiny teen didn't know about one of their best defenses if anything went wrong. "If there's ever any trouble… Jacob helped me put in a room under the driver's side seat. It's kinda like a panic room. Demon warded, got food and water supplies and a way out of the car, plus not even Jacob can get in if we need to bunker down for a bit."
Chase nodded, though his gaze still wandered around the interior of the car. The steering wheel, the radio, and of course the windshield were larger to him than the whole car should be. He watched enormous houses slide by the window view with continued awe on his face.
"So the important question is, have you used it to prank Jake here somehow?" he asked.
"They haven't, but I'm glad you gave them the idea," Jacob groused. He was tempted to poke Chase in his pocket, but he refrained. Just barely.
"I don't think Dean needs any help coming up with pranks," Sam chimed in from Jacob's shoulder, enjoying a bird's eye view of Dean and Chase's place in the pocket. The last time they'd gone on a road trip with the four of them, he'd been the one in a pocket with Jacob, while Dean was up in Chase's shoulder to direct him to Bobby's. Which he'd managed, for the most part, with a correction or two from Jacob when their carpool had gone astray because Dean and Sam didn't have much experience navigating the open roads.
With a case in front of them, and everyone on board, the Impala streaked down the highway.
They had work to do.
A/N:
Back! Haven't finished Tears of the Kingdom yet, but posting is back on track :) My computer has been giving me weird moments this week where it crashed, so hopefully that just doesn't happen again.
The boys are on the case!
Next: June 7th, 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!
