Sam woke with a start when the bedsprings above him creaked. At some point, waiting for the giant couple to fall asleep, he had fallen asleep. He still remembered the dream, although it grew dimmer with each passing moment as reality pressed in. Dean. The man in the bed was Dean. His heart hurt when he thought about the dream. They had been reunited. Together at last. 

Sam rubbed his chest as his eyes burned. He both loved and hated dreams like that. Dreams where Dean came back and life restarted and they were together and nothing could separate them again. He loved the escape from the depressing truth that he was shrunk, hiding in the walls of a dingy hotel, foraging for crumbs and surviving off scraps. He couldn't even call this living.

On the flip side of that coin, though, was his hatred for such dreams. Because they inevitably ended and he had to wake up and face another day of barely surviving at four inches tall. Like right now. There were still phantom pains in his shoulder from the dream. He still felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck at the memory of the woman seeing him and catching him, holding him fast. There was still terror present in his veins at the thought of a gun, bigger than his family's house, pointed at him. 

It was nightmarish.

He shuddered and pulled his knees to his chest. Above him, snores echoed from the bed. Deep and masculine, as if sawing logs. There was a faint noise, just below the snores, of a heavy, open-mouthed breathing. It must be the woman. Sam thought longingly of what he actually saw; the man's chest, broad and muscular, the background for a necklace that bore an amulet so like the one he had given his brother years ago. There was a small possibility that this man, this big, imposing man was Dean. But it was so small and remote that Sam didn't let hope grow.

The cursed human used the pitch black darkness of the room to slip from under the covers and dart for the vent. He ran full-tilt across the room, making it in record time. The faintest sense of being Seen prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. one of the humans was waking up. He slid into the slats and disappeared from sight. A sigh of relief left him as he was secured behind the metal vent. He was safe for now.

The boots his adoptive father had fashioned for him were all but noiseless as he walked down the vent. They gripped the rough surface of the wooden beams as he balanced. He thought as he walked, as he trudged, through the dust and the silence. He thought of his life, lost to the past. He thought of his brother, of the small potential that the man in the room was him. He thought of what could happen if that was actually Dean. Perhaps he would accept him for what he was now. Perhaps they would go off together, start hunting as a team. Dean could teach him what he knew, how to defend himself, how to kill different creatures, what different signs meant. Perhaps they would actually be a family again.

But probably not. Not when Sam was a little over four inches tall. He was too small to be of any good. He would just be a liability. He would only get in the way and draw Dean's attention away from the hunt, the fight, and get him hurt or even killed. Sam shuddered at the thought. It was a terrible thought, indeed. So while Sam dreamed to one day be reunited with his brother, he held little hope that it would actually happen. He wanted to connect with the man out there, see if it was Dean. The risk, though, was far too much.

Sam resigned himself to the dark, subsistence lifestyle he lead now. He pushed aside the door to his home and slipped inside. 

***

In the bedroom, Dean stirred in his sleep. He thought he heard the faintest of noises, the sounds of scuffling on the carpet. He slowly sat up and watched a dark shadow flit across the floor and disappear into the vents. "Great," he muttered under his breath, "This dive has rats." He glanced at his on-again, off-again partner. He better not let Jess find out or she would be at the front desk, no matter the hour, protesting about the accommodations and demanding a refund. Never mind that she didn't actually pay for the place. He'd seen her berate a manager for letting roaches get into the mini-fridge and rats into the pantry. She'd threatened to call the health department if he didn't clean the place and refund her money. Which, of course, he promptly did.

Dean threaded his fingers through Jess's wild tumble of curls, caressing her scalp with a gentleness reserved for her and his car. He watched her sleep. It was perhaps one of the few times she looked peaceful. His eyes slid over the tattoos on her arm, four red bows with black ribbons. One day he would find out what they meant. She wore them proudly, hardly ever covering them. It was obvious they held clues to the back story even Bobby had not fully pieced together. He would occasionally catch her lost in thought, rubbing the tattoos as she stared off into space. Those times, her face was clouded with regret and sorrow, emotions he knew all too well.

Emotions he struggled with on a daily basis.

This town brought them up more than any other. This little Podunk, one-horse town was where his little brother had died. Sammy. He had been destroyed by a witch in the blinding blink of an eye. All because Dean had been selfish and left the room to play the old arcade games in the lobby. He sighed and laid back down. He pulled Jesslyn close and buried his face in her hair, breathing deeply of her scent. 

She was slipping under his guard, worming her way into his tight inner circle. Hell, his closed inner circle. Bobby was the only other one in that sphere of influence and even he didn't seem to be quite so important as this woman. Jesslyn needed him. Sometimes. And Dean needed to be needed. Even if it was just for changing a tire or transmission fluid or beheading a charging vamp. She didn't have quite the upper body strength for a single, clean stroke with a machete. But he did. He could take down the threat quickly. She appreciated that.

And oh how he liked being appreciated. It and being needed were one hell of a drug and he could get high on it for the rest of his life. She gave him a purpose outside of hunting. Helping her. Protecting her. He relished it. He relished these little moments where it was just them in the bed. Nothing else. No one else. No monsters. No humans. No absent fathers or dead brothers. Just them. Just two people, a man and a woman, needing each other and fulfilling that need. 

His calloused hands trailed over her shoulders, down the dip of her waist and up the curve of her hips. His thumb stroked the small scar he found there, a wound from their first hunt together. He had felt awful, like a failure, when he saw the blood soaking her jeans and the massive splinter sticking out of her skin. But she had just smiled and told him to pull it the hell out before it got infected. Then she had cursed him to hell and back when he did.

Still, she was grateful he had been there and was forgiving enough to hunt with him the next time they ran into each other. And the next and the next. If relationships weren't such dangerous things in their line of work, they probably would have called this what it was. As it stood, the danger added a new layer of thrill, enticing and drawing them ever deeper into each other. They couldn't keep away. Fate seemed determined to bind them to each other. 

Dean sighed deeply and closed his eyes. As long as the rat didn't come back into the room or try to steal from the pantry, it would all be okay. He wouldn't say a word to Jesslyn. They could finish the hunt and leave. Maybe the next play they picked wouldn't be quite such a rat-hole. But he didn't hold high hopes.