Tiny!Charlie ficlet part 1

Blinking away the strange sleep, Charlie woke up to see the blonde hunter looming over her on the bed. Something was off about the image, and it took her brain several moments of confused back and forth to logic out what exactly was wrong her perspective. Dean had always been pretty tall. But right now, he was about the size of the Sears tower to Charlie. So not normal. The jade eyes far overhead locked onto her the moment she opened her mouth, sending a vicious chill up her spine. 

Dean got down closer to her, aware of her stammering and shocked reaction. As he set a huge hand on the edge of the bed to support himself, she was startled by the immediate comparison. His hand alone was roughly the size of a pick-up truck! 

"This would be so much hotter if you were Princess Leia in a slave bikini." She squeaked out nervously. 

Dean raised an eyebrow, but the searing concern in his eyes did not relent. 

"How are you feeling, Charlie?"

"G-great. Totally great. Sidebar on that though- what's with the freakishly big growth spurt?" 

"Uh... More like the other way around. When you jumped in front and took that hit for me," Dean explained haltingly. "It looks like the wicked witch... She, uh, shrunk you." 

The tiny redhead stared up at him blankly for a lengthy pause. "This is a joke, right?" 

Dean only gave her a grim look. 

Charlie swallowed hard. All color was frightened right out of her complexion, leaving her as pale as the creamy sheets she stood amidst. 

Dean reached for her slowly. "I'm gonna pick you up now. There's a safe room downstairs." 

Like a switch had been flipped, Charlie let out an embarrassingly high pitched yelp and leapt away from the incoming hand. She tripped amongst folds of fabric, tumbling backwards onto her fanny. Heart flitting fearfully, she scrambled to her feet and continued to back away. 

"Whoa! Uh, actually I've got a lot of important stuff to do over there, on the other side of the bed." She laughed weakly. 

Dean failed to hide his impatience. "Charlie-"  

Charlie was a bit stunned by her own reaction. She stared at Dean's hand, hyper aware of all the wrinkles and grooves and details that made it uniquely his. Despite the Winchesters being  monster-magnets, she had never turned down a hug or anything from him before. He was a great hugger, after all. But then again... A hug from this Behemoth-Dean would probably kill her. 

She braced herself as his thick fingers finally made contact, brushing along her side and around her to back. It was comforting to see the intense, almost comical concentration on his face; he was nearly as freaked out about this as she was. With that in mind, she forced herself to hold still, falling back into his grasp and letting her skinny arms drape over his knuckles. His free hand hovered under his occupied one, even though he held her in a fist from the stomach-down.

Dean held her up near his face: her eyes were squeezed tight and she was white-knuckling his first finger. 

"You alright? You're... not gonna throw up on me, are you?" 

She peeked up at him. "I could say the same thing to you. You look like you're about to go into labor!" 

Dean scoffed, but cracked a brief smile. It was a relief to see her calm down enough to back-sass him at the very least. He shut off the lights in his bedroom and started for the stairs. 

"Dorothy... Are she and Sam okay?" Charlie called up, not sure if she needed to shout to be heard. She looked up at the underside of his chin, wondering if this is how super rare action figures felt when they were carried around. 

Dean nodded without looking down. "They're scouting out the place for the witch."

He clenched his jaw, growing anxious with the passage of time. There was no telling where the witch would strike next. And now that she had the key, the stakes had mounted. 

Dean checked around every corner and vent for any green smoke or the ugly hag herself. Charlie eyed with a new wariness how his finger flexed over the trigger of the big handgun in his other hand.

He made it to the safe room without incident. It wasn't officially labeled a safe room; the men of letters had used it as some sort of storage room. But it was warded against demons and just about every other type of monster, so the brothers declared the unofficial safe room of the bunker. 

"Alright, you should be safe here. Don't try to do anything crazy. We'll take care of this." Dean told her, gingerly setting the tiny Charlie onto the small table near the front. 

She was almost lost in the landscape of abandoned paperwork and dried-up fountain pens. Dean felt a pang about leaving her side for even a moment in this vulnerable state. He convinced himself to leave with the knowledge that she had the best chance of surviving this here, away from the action. 

Charlie craned her neck a little less as he stepped away to check that the poppy bullets were still in front of the clip.  

"O-Okay. I'll just be... Here." Charlie trailed off into an anxious mutter.  

She received one last harried look from the huge hunter before his steps pounded to the door and he left her sight. The door shut behind him, large gears grinding the antique lock shut firmly.