Mother Issues, [PG-13] 5/?, Sam, Dean, Ellen
Title: Mother Issues
Author: deanie_mcqueen
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, Family, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Sam, Dean, Ellen
Word Count: 1,773
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers up through S2, de-aging!fic, WIP
Summary: Set at some ambiguous point in S2, Sam and Dean find themselves in a small situation after a hunt goes awry. Lucky for them they chose to stay at The Roadhouse, a lovely one-star resort complete with all the amenities: cots, booze, sandwiches...fine, maternal specimens named Ellen Harvelle...
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
__________________________
Sam found himself yawning by seven o'clock that night when he stepped out of Ash's room. His tiny sneakers scraped across the floor as he walked back into the bar. It was now loud and bustling with drunk hunters and hunters-soon-to-be-drunk and sober-hunters-who-were-staying-sober-because-they-had-a-job-to-do-thank-you, all talking over the sounds of the jukebox's attempts to rattle out Take the Money and Run. Sam would have been feeling most uneasy by now if it weren't for the fact that he was in this clever, cursed disguise - he knew that if he were big, they would be looking at him and fingering their guns.
As it was, though, Sam was a little boy. A good, little boy in a spotless, navy blue sweater vest and this is what he would be for a while. He and Ash hadn't come up with anything in the past three hours other than the revelation that it was imperative that they return to the witch's abode and pick up the knife, because it had to be the knife. Sam couldn't remember her emitting a verbal spell of any sort and that knife had cut them both so quick and seared them so fast-
These thoughts were disrupted when Sam ran into a tree. Or rather, a leg that seemed thick enough to be a tree, and he looked up to see a plaid-adorned man with a grizzly beard scowling down at him.
"Watch where yer goin', kid," the man growled, causing Sam to sniff indignantly. It wasn't Sam's fault this guy decided to stand in his way, after all. "What's a little runty thing like you doin' in here, anyway? Ain't it past your bedtime?"
"Isn't it past yours?" Sam retorted, only to find himself on the receiving end of a very dark glare. He stepped away. Not because he was frightened - not at all. It was just...this dude smelled really bad and Sam only appreciated nice scents, like the scent of Ellen's bodywash, whatever that was.
"You talk to your daddy like that?"
No...well, actually, yes, Sam did. Sam did talk to Dad like that. A lot, actually. And while talking to Dad like that was never actually a premium idea, Sam always felt a bit smug afterwards. Talking to Dad like that meant he had balls. Big balls. Balls way, way bigger than Dean's.
Because nobody talked to John Winchester like that. Nobody.
So Sam said with a hint of pride in his voice, "No. Nobody talked to my dad like that." He realized his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth, of course. And his eyes went wide. And he swallowed.
The guy went slightly open-mouthed and tilted his head to the side as he studied Sam. "Talked. Your daddy's dead?" Sam could almost see the man's mind working as his eyes flickered with thoughts. "Where's your mama?" He took one small step forward, leering down at Sam. He was very big. Sam wasn't used to anybody being bigger than him anymore.
He stepped back, his heart hammering inside his chest, each thud accentuating the pang of longing for that extra three feet and give-or-take-a-few inches that used to make him far more intimidating than he was right now. Right now, Sam was a little boy in a spotless, navy blue sweater vest and that's all he was.
"She dead, too?" the growly man asked. "What's your name, kid? Who do you belong to?"
Sam stayed silent.
"You look awful familiar, boy. Like this other kid I keep hearing about, except...smaller. You're just a little thing, aren't you?" The man crouched down to Sam's new height. Sam made to take another step back, but the guy caught him around the shoulders, pulled him forward. The overpowering smell of whiskey mingling with the stale odors of chewing tobacco and unwashed clothes drifted to his nose and Sam turned his head away as much as he could. "Y'know Gordon Walker called me up recently, got me to read up on some antichrist lore - those bastards can pretty much do anything, you know? They can turn you into a celery stick just by thinkin' it. Now, I imagine they can turn all that power back on themselves if they need to...don't you?"
"I...I don't-"
"Now, I heard tell this boy was in these parts...and Ellen over there, feisty lady that she is, she's real loyal when it comes to Winchesters- ow!" The speed at which the man jerked his hands away suggested that Sam's shoulders were fire-levels of hot, and he scrambled gracelessly to his feet and whirled around, away from Sam, swearing, "Jesus mother sonuva cocksuckin-"
Sam saw Dean through the space between the man's legs, and tipping his head just a little further back, the impression of where Dean's tiny shoe had kicked the hunter's denim-covered backside.
"Get the hell away from my brother," Dean snarled, then his eyes drifted upwards as if he were thinking, and he paused before adding, "Mister."
The man clenched and unclenched his fists, exhaling short, vicious breaths through his nose as he stared down at Dean. Sam zipped around the man's legs to stand next to his brother, noted that the man's face was an interesting shade of red.
"Boy, you're gonna wish you hadn't done that-"
"Don't you threaten me, you assmuffin," Dean said, and he shook his head just a little as he said it, a corner of his lips rising in a smirk. "M'six. I rule the universe. I scream, pretty much everyone in this fuckin' bar comes running. What d'ya think you're doing, anyhow? Threatening little kids like this..."
The hunter's beady eyes narrowed. "You're not a little kid, kid."
Dean raised one eyebrow. "Oh, so you're blind now?"
"Little kids don't talk like you do."
Dean shrugged. "We're advanced for our age. Gifted class and shit. Ain't that right, Sammy?"
For the second time in less than ten minutes, Sam swallowed down his horror. He looked at his brother with eyes that said, you're an idiot, Dean, but Dean just scrunched his face up like he didn't get it.
The hunter smiled an open-mouthed smile and his teeth were yellow and black and pointy in a way they shouldn't be.
Dean snorted. "Dude, lay off the tobacky."
"Sammy...Sammy Winchester?" His eyes were alight with triumph. He knew it. He had known it from the second he started talking to Sam, and Sam knew that he had known all this time, and what were the fucking odds that this, this fantastic otherworldly veil the witch had cursed him with, would fail so quickly? A chuckle escaped the man's throat and it was a cold sound. "You're not a liar. Your daddy is dead."
Dean was pale now and looking around for a weapon, for a way to shut the guy up before he could say anything more, before they got noticed by everyone else in the bar, but Sam had the solution. As the baby of the family, Sam remembered when this had always been the reasonable solution.
He screamed. It was long and piercing and sounded sort of like a shriek, or a banshee's cry, and there were tears. Mighty droplets pooled from his big, blue-green eyes and poured down his cheeks, plunking to the floor. "E-Ellen!" he wailed.
And he kept going, kept crying and the tears blurred his vision and fogged his head and he vaguely felt Dean's hand desperately gripping his shoulder, barely heard the sound of Ellen cocking her shotgun, her voice deep and dangerous as she told him - Jeb, his name was Jeb, Sam heard, to get the hell outta her bar, you drunk bastard.
There was a tussle, at least five bodies and lots of swears and Sam heard the door open and close several times, as his brother whispered that it would be alright in his ear and that it was fine now and Sam could stop crying, the bastard was gone.
"He's gone, Sam."
Sam couldn't stop himself, though. He just kept going, and eventually he was lifted into a pair of small, but solid arms. Ellen's hair smelled amazing compared to the rest of the Roadhouse, somehow free of the scent of smoke and booze. Sam buried himself in it as he was carried out of the bar all the way into the back room.
"Sam, sweetie..." he heard her say, and he heard her say other things after that, but they didn't really soak in, didn't become words in his brain, just left her mouth and entered the air and vaporized meaning until they were nothing more than soothing blather.
"We're not really six, you know," he heard Dean say sometime after his beloved sweater vest was gently divested from his body. "It's not even eight, Ellen."
"I know," Ellen replied, and Sam almost flinched at the hint of irritation he heard in her voice. "You can stay up if you want, but your brother's tired out."
"He's just-"
"He's tired out, Dean." The note of finality in her voice was enough to shut Dean up. Sam's sobs petered out into tiny hiccups, as he found himself back in his purple whippet T-shirt, shoved under the covers, a cool, soothing hand brushing the hair back from his head.
He wondered what the hell had just happened.
"M'sorry," Dean said quietly. "'Bout earlier, I mean."
Sam wondered what had happened earlier. Dean had done something, said something, like Dean was always doing, always distancing himself from any semblance of human interaction beyond Sam and Dad and memories of Mom, and Sam wanted to kick him and tell him to cut it out even though he didn't know exactly what had happened.
But Ellen said it was okay.
"It's okay," she said. "It's been a long day, huh?"
"Too long," Dean agreed. "This body makes me feel like I've been playing Edward Fortyhands for friggin' days without stopping.."
Sam knew exactly what his brother meant. Being small was like being perpetually drunk, uninhibited and clumsy.
His eyes were closed as he heard Ellen say goodnight. He listened to Dean shuffle around the room for a while.
He started to drift off, but woke up just slightly in time to feel the thin mattress depress with Dean's weight, the gentle knock of limbs as his brother carefully climbed over him and fell asleep with his back turned to Sam's, warm and close.
Next
Author: deanie_mcqueen
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, Family, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Sam, Dean, Ellen
Word Count: 1,773
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers up through S2, de-aging!fic, WIP
Summary: Set at some ambiguous point in S2, Sam and Dean find themselves in a small situation after a hunt goes awry. Lucky for them they chose to stay at The Roadhouse, a lovely one-star resort complete with all the amenities: cots, booze, sandwiches...fine, maternal specimens named Ellen Harvelle...
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
__________________________
Sam found himself yawning by seven o'clock that night when he stepped out of Ash's room. His tiny sneakers scraped across the floor as he walked back into the bar. It was now loud and bustling with drunk hunters and hunters-soon-to-be-drunk and sober-hunters-who-were-staying-sober-because-they-had-a-job-to-do-thank-you, all talking over the sounds of the jukebox's attempts to rattle out Take the Money and Run. Sam would have been feeling most uneasy by now if it weren't for the fact that he was in this clever, cursed disguise - he knew that if he were big, they would be looking at him and fingering their guns.
As it was, though, Sam was a little boy. A good, little boy in a spotless, navy blue sweater vest and this is what he would be for a while. He and Ash hadn't come up with anything in the past three hours other than the revelation that it was imperative that they return to the witch's abode and pick up the knife, because it had to be the knife. Sam couldn't remember her emitting a verbal spell of any sort and that knife had cut them both so quick and seared them so fast-
These thoughts were disrupted when Sam ran into a tree. Or rather, a leg that seemed thick enough to be a tree, and he looked up to see a plaid-adorned man with a grizzly beard scowling down at him.
"Watch where yer goin', kid," the man growled, causing Sam to sniff indignantly. It wasn't Sam's fault this guy decided to stand in his way, after all. "What's a little runty thing like you doin' in here, anyway? Ain't it past your bedtime?"
"Isn't it past yours?" Sam retorted, only to find himself on the receiving end of a very dark glare. He stepped away. Not because he was frightened - not at all. It was just...this dude smelled really bad and Sam only appreciated nice scents, like the scent of Ellen's bodywash, whatever that was.
"You talk to your daddy like that?"
No...well, actually, yes, Sam did. Sam did talk to Dad like that. A lot, actually. And while talking to Dad like that was never actually a premium idea, Sam always felt a bit smug afterwards. Talking to Dad like that meant he had balls. Big balls. Balls way, way bigger than Dean's.
Because nobody talked to John Winchester like that. Nobody.
So Sam said with a hint of pride in his voice, "No. Nobody talked to my dad like that." He realized his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth, of course. And his eyes went wide. And he swallowed.
The guy went slightly open-mouthed and tilted his head to the side as he studied Sam. "Talked. Your daddy's dead?" Sam could almost see the man's mind working as his eyes flickered with thoughts. "Where's your mama?" He took one small step forward, leering down at Sam. He was very big. Sam wasn't used to anybody being bigger than him anymore.
He stepped back, his heart hammering inside his chest, each thud accentuating the pang of longing for that extra three feet and give-or-take-a-few inches that used to make him far more intimidating than he was right now. Right now, Sam was a little boy in a spotless, navy blue sweater vest and that's all he was.
"She dead, too?" the growly man asked. "What's your name, kid? Who do you belong to?"
Sam stayed silent.
"You look awful familiar, boy. Like this other kid I keep hearing about, except...smaller. You're just a little thing, aren't you?" The man crouched down to Sam's new height. Sam made to take another step back, but the guy caught him around the shoulders, pulled him forward. The overpowering smell of whiskey mingling with the stale odors of chewing tobacco and unwashed clothes drifted to his nose and Sam turned his head away as much as he could. "Y'know Gordon Walker called me up recently, got me to read up on some antichrist lore - those bastards can pretty much do anything, you know? They can turn you into a celery stick just by thinkin' it. Now, I imagine they can turn all that power back on themselves if they need to...don't you?"
"I...I don't-"
"Now, I heard tell this boy was in these parts...and Ellen over there, feisty lady that she is, she's real loyal when it comes to Winchesters- ow!" The speed at which the man jerked his hands away suggested that Sam's shoulders were fire-levels of hot, and he scrambled gracelessly to his feet and whirled around, away from Sam, swearing, "Jesus mother sonuva cocksuckin-"
Sam saw Dean through the space between the man's legs, and tipping his head just a little further back, the impression of where Dean's tiny shoe had kicked the hunter's denim-covered backside.
"Get the hell away from my brother," Dean snarled, then his eyes drifted upwards as if he were thinking, and he paused before adding, "Mister."
The man clenched and unclenched his fists, exhaling short, vicious breaths through his nose as he stared down at Dean. Sam zipped around the man's legs to stand next to his brother, noted that the man's face was an interesting shade of red.
"Boy, you're gonna wish you hadn't done that-"
"Don't you threaten me, you assmuffin," Dean said, and he shook his head just a little as he said it, a corner of his lips rising in a smirk. "M'six. I rule the universe. I scream, pretty much everyone in this fuckin' bar comes running. What d'ya think you're doing, anyhow? Threatening little kids like this..."
The hunter's beady eyes narrowed. "You're not a little kid, kid."
Dean raised one eyebrow. "Oh, so you're blind now?"
"Little kids don't talk like you do."
Dean shrugged. "We're advanced for our age. Gifted class and shit. Ain't that right, Sammy?"
For the second time in less than ten minutes, Sam swallowed down his horror. He looked at his brother with eyes that said, you're an idiot, Dean, but Dean just scrunched his face up like he didn't get it.
The hunter smiled an open-mouthed smile and his teeth were yellow and black and pointy in a way they shouldn't be.
Dean snorted. "Dude, lay off the tobacky."
"Sammy...Sammy Winchester?" His eyes were alight with triumph. He knew it. He had known it from the second he started talking to Sam, and Sam knew that he had known all this time, and what were the fucking odds that this, this fantastic otherworldly veil the witch had cursed him with, would fail so quickly? A chuckle escaped the man's throat and it was a cold sound. "You're not a liar. Your daddy is dead."
Dean was pale now and looking around for a weapon, for a way to shut the guy up before he could say anything more, before they got noticed by everyone else in the bar, but Sam had the solution. As the baby of the family, Sam remembered when this had always been the reasonable solution.
He screamed. It was long and piercing and sounded sort of like a shriek, or a banshee's cry, and there were tears. Mighty droplets pooled from his big, blue-green eyes and poured down his cheeks, plunking to the floor. "E-Ellen!" he wailed.
And he kept going, kept crying and the tears blurred his vision and fogged his head and he vaguely felt Dean's hand desperately gripping his shoulder, barely heard the sound of Ellen cocking her shotgun, her voice deep and dangerous as she told him - Jeb, his name was Jeb, Sam heard, to get the hell outta her bar, you drunk bastard.
There was a tussle, at least five bodies and lots of swears and Sam heard the door open and close several times, as his brother whispered that it would be alright in his ear and that it was fine now and Sam could stop crying, the bastard was gone.
"He's gone, Sam."
Sam couldn't stop himself, though. He just kept going, and eventually he was lifted into a pair of small, but solid arms. Ellen's hair smelled amazing compared to the rest of the Roadhouse, somehow free of the scent of smoke and booze. Sam buried himself in it as he was carried out of the bar all the way into the back room.
"Sam, sweetie..." he heard her say, and he heard her say other things after that, but they didn't really soak in, didn't become words in his brain, just left her mouth and entered the air and vaporized meaning until they were nothing more than soothing blather.
"We're not really six, you know," he heard Dean say sometime after his beloved sweater vest was gently divested from his body. "It's not even eight, Ellen."
"I know," Ellen replied, and Sam almost flinched at the hint of irritation he heard in her voice. "You can stay up if you want, but your brother's tired out."
"He's just-"
"He's tired out, Dean." The note of finality in her voice was enough to shut Dean up. Sam's sobs petered out into tiny hiccups, as he found himself back in his purple whippet T-shirt, shoved under the covers, a cool, soothing hand brushing the hair back from his head.
He wondered what the hell had just happened.
"M'sorry," Dean said quietly. "'Bout earlier, I mean."
Sam wondered what had happened earlier. Dean had done something, said something, like Dean was always doing, always distancing himself from any semblance of human interaction beyond Sam and Dad and memories of Mom, and Sam wanted to kick him and tell him to cut it out even though he didn't know exactly what had happened.
But Ellen said it was okay.
"It's okay," she said. "It's been a long day, huh?"
"Too long," Dean agreed. "This body makes me feel like I've been playing Edward Fortyhands for friggin' days without stopping.."
Sam knew exactly what his brother meant. Being small was like being perpetually drunk, uninhibited and clumsy.
His eyes were closed as he heard Ellen say goodnight. He listened to Dean shuffle around the room for a while.
He started to drift off, but woke up just slightly in time to feel the thin mattress depress with Dean's weight, the gentle knock of limbs as his brother carefully climbed over him and fell asleep with his back turned to Sam's, warm and close.
Next