Forget the Dragon for lyryk, part one
Aug. 27th, 2017 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summergen_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
spn_summergenTitle: Forget the Dragon
Recipient: lyryk
Rating: T
Word Count or Media: 23,676
Warnings: Show-typical violence
Author's Notes: Ok, there are so many things I want to say, but this thing is already massive, so I’m going to try to keep it short. First, thanks to the mods for being so understanding and supportive! Y’all are awesome. And, second, thanks to lyryk for the awesome prompts. I had a lot of fun—maybe even a little too much fun—writing this story. That said, it’s not precisely the story I started out to write, and it’s probably not the story you were expecting, lyryk, but I hope you like anyway. Title from Richard Siken’s Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.
Third, hurt/comfort bingo: On the run.
Prompt: Preseries – why did wee!Sam appear so nonchalant when Dean had been sent to the home for boys and was supposedly missing? I’d love something along the lines of John having to wipe Sam’s memory or doing something drastic to make him stop panicking about what had happened to Dean.
Summary: With Dad hunting and Dean gone, Sam has to manage on his own.
Sam finished the last problem on his math homework and flipped the book closed, then his notebook, stacking them neatly before looking up—and frowning.
The house was dark. Sometimes Dean wouldn’t turn on the lights if he was watching a horror movie, but the house was quiet, too, no screams or growls or cheesy music drifting into the kitchen from the TV in the living room. Sam listened closely, but there were no sounds at all, just the house—being.
“Dean?” he called, his voice sudden and small and still, somehow, too loud.
Nothing.
There should have been something, though. Right? His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t had dinner yet as he searched out the clock, but he didn’t need the green 7:39 staring back at him to know it was late. Too late. Dean was supposed to have been right behind him. He was just going to run to the Market, get them something for dinner, then come home. He’d left right after school.
Anxious, Sam pushed up, clinging to the back of the chair like it could protect him from the dark. Because what if Dean had come home? What if something had gotten him when he came in and Sam just hadn’t noticed? It could still be out there, waiting, ready to pounce on him the moment he left the kitchen, ready to eat him.
Dean wouldn’t have gone quietly, though. Sam would have heard him. He always yelled when he got home, and he would’ve yelled louder if there’d been a monster. So if he wasn’t here, he never made it home. “Dean?”
Sam trailed close to the wall when he padded across the floor, trailing his hand over the light switch when he passed so light flooded out behind him. He checked the whole house, turning on the lights as he went, but there was definitely no Dean and no sign of Dean.
If Sam hadn’t come home when he was supposed to, Dean would’ve immediately gone looking for him. Sam wasn’t supposed to go out alone, though, especially not after dark. And if something happened, he was supposed to call Dad.
Just—he didn’t know something had happened. Sure, it wasn’t like Dean to disappear, but he could have met some girl—Rebecca Witherspoon, maybe, he’d been talking about her—and gotten talking and lost track of time. Maybe she’d convinced him to go back to her place, and maybe that was in the wrong direction, and maybe he had a really long walk to get back home.
Or maybe a monster got him and Sam would never know.
He’d been hesitating, but now he grabbed his knife and a flashlight, fished the key out of the bowl by the door and locked up behind him. It wouldn’t hurt anything for Sam to walk up to the Market, just to check. If he didn’t find Dean between here and there, he could call Dad.
He clicked on the flashlight and started walking.
*
It was a short walk. The Market was less than a quarter mile from their rental house, doorstep-to-doorstep, along Forestburgh Road. Dean would’ve gone that way, continuing straight after Sam split off, but Sam took the backway, cutting through their neighbors’ yards in a more-or-less straight line, because that’s the way Dean would have taken to come back.
He looked, but he never saw movement, never glimpsed Dean's familiar silhouette.
There weren’t any wooded areas between the Market and the Colony for Dean to get lost in, not that Dean usually got lost, but Sam called his name, anyway, in case he’d fallen and broken his leg, or one of the neighbors had locked him in the cellar. You learned a lot of unpleasant possibilities researching the missing and dead.
Dean didn’t answer, which was maybe good or maybe just meant he was unconscious. Sam felt cold and jittery by the time he reached the Market’s parking lot. There weren’t many cars out, the blues and blacks and greens hard to differentiate in the dark, but none of them were the Impala and Dean didn’t have a car, so it didn’t matter. When he tried the Market door, he found it open, and pushed through.
It felt empty. It didn’t look any different, though, had the same tall, rich wooden shelves gathered close and filled with stuff, a low ceiling, fluorescent lights, three stand-alone checkout lanes, stacks of fruit, bright white tile floors. But where it had felt cozy when he'd come in with Dean, now it was claustrophobic, the air pressing too close, the shelves too close, the rest of the room too big, hollowed out like the bottom of his stomach.
He made himself keep walking anyway, even when he caught the eye of a guy older than dad in the Market's red vest. He had furrows in his brow, a big nose, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sam's too big sweatshirt and overcoat.
Sam ducked his head to avoid his eyes, letting his too-long bangs shield him, and headed straight for the back of the store. He didn't run into Dean on the way. At the back of the store, he walked quickly, glancing down each aisle, hoping for a glimpse of bristly blond hair. He reached the end and turned back.
The older guy appeared at the end of the aisle, broom at his side like a staff. Sam hunched his shoulders and kept moving, feeling like he was doing something wrong, but he wasn’t. The feeling wound his guts tighter with every aisle the guy paced him to.
He jerked to a halt when a girl about Dean's age, sweet faced, with a perky blond ponytail passed by. She had a trash bag with her and offered him a smile before disappearing through the Staff Only doors. She was the kind of pretty Dean usually waxed poetically about, and he thought she looked vaguely familiar. But he didn't want to think about what it meant that his brother wasn't hanging around her trying to be smooth.
The Glaring Guy got him moving again, suspicious stare forbidding. If the guy—the manager, probably, or maybe the owner—had stared at Dean that way, it might explain why his brother wasn't here.
It didn't explain where he'd gone, though, and that was really what Sam cared about.
He left under the glare of the same dark eyes and wasn't surprised when the door was locked behind him. Two cars were missing from the parking lot, and Sam kept walking forward, straight through the parking lot to the road. There weren't any sidewalks, but there wasn't much traffic, either. He stared down the road, toward The Colony, looking for any sign of Dean, and his gut clenched when he didn't find any.
The other direction wasn't any better, the road disappearing into darkness even before it curved out of sight. There were plenty of trees and places to get lost that way, and no way for Sam to search them alone, in the dark. If Dean was there, he'd have to wait for Dad.
The thought made Sam's chest feel tight, his stomach sick. He turned away from it, back to the Market. He saw movement through the windows and started circling left, away from their temporary home and the door the manager/owner would likely use, drawn to the last place he had to look like a compass to north.
Monsters didn't usually hide bodies in dumpsters—they didn't usually hide them at all—but people did. Dread dragged his feet the closer he got, prompted him to hug the wall. That, and habit. We do what we do and we shut up about it included being stealthy so people didn’t see them where they weren’t supposed to be.
Then he realized he could hear voices. The electric shock-jolt of hope stole his breath a moment, even as his ears strained to differentiate the voices. There was a mix of girls and guys, multiples of each, but he couldn't pick out Dean's and couldn’t tell how many. He approached the corner quicker than his dad would've liked, but he needed to find Dean.
Caution kept him from bursting out into the open, though. Instead, he stopped at the corner and slowly peeked around the edge. There were five girls and four boys. One of the girls was the blonde who'd smiled at him, her vest draped over the closed dumpster. Two other girls, both brunettes, had vests, but only one of the guys did. They were all about Dean's age, definitely high schoolers, but Dean wasn't among them.
This was turning into the unfunniest game of Where’s Waldo ever.
He was about to turn away—they were smoking, and it looked like the bulk of the group had been there awhile—when the tallest guy pulled the joint from his lips and said, "Were you here when Winchester got arrested?"
That stopped him. Shock—arrested? Dean?—quickly changed to dread and anger as the others laughed.
Amid the laughter, the blonde smacked the tall guy, said, "That's not funny, Brian. He probably needed that stuff."
"Then he should have paid for it," one of the brunettes chimed in.
"You think they'll beat him for it?" the guy in the vest asked, laughter in his voice.
It was a joke, Sam knew it was a joke, but he must've made a sound because the blonde's head came up, blue eyes locking immediately on Sam. Something about them was off. He backed up, but she moved faster.
"You're Dean's brother," she said, "aren't you?"
He stopped but she didn’t, pinned in place by the eyes of her friends. She held her hands between them like she was trying to calm a spooked animal. Sam felt like a spooked animal. If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between his legs, and that was stupid. He was being stupid. They were just kids, like him. He pushed his sleeves back to clear his hands. Still felt small. "Did Dean really get arrested?"
She grimaced, lips pulling into a sad smile. "I'm sorry. Mr. Hewlett caught him. You didn't. . . ?"
He shook his head quickly. The idea sloshed around his brain, churning unpleasantly. They were supposed to be keeping their heads down, not getting into fights and not drawing attention. Arrested was drawing attention. Dad would kill him.
Did Dad know?
"I'm sorry.” She’d gotten closer while he wasn’t paying attention, close enough to reach out and touch. "Where's you dad?" Her fingers brushed the back of his hand.
Sam jolted back like he'd been shocked. "I should go," he told the weird looks. Don’t draw attention, but it was probably too late for that.
The girl didn’t try to touch him again. He studied her face, trying to figure out if Dean had talked about her, if he should offer her something. But he didn’t know what, and if Dad got home to find Sam out after dark and Dean not there, Sam would be in PT until he died. So he gave a small as he back away, two steps, then three, until he'd doubled the distance between them, then tripled it.
He hesitated before turning away, though, bit his lip. "Do you know where the jail is?" he asked finally.
"That way." She jerked his head towards the Colony. "Turn right on Broadway. It's at the corner of Pleasant Street."
"Thanks." He shoved his hands in his sweatshirt's pouch, wrapping one hand around the flashlight, the other around his pocketknife, then left. He listened footsteps following him, but none did. Instead, they started talking again.
"You going to visit him in jail, too?" one of the guys asked.
”Maybe, the blonde answered coyly.
"Try not to run this one off."
*
He should have gone home. That was where Dad would go after he picked up Dean. That was where he would expect Sam to be. But that temporary house wasn't home without Dean there, and the fear wasn't gone. Less, different—but not gone. More than anything, he just wanted to see that Dean was okay with his own two eyes. So he started walking.
It was a long walk. Only two miles, but with no sidewalks along Forestburgh, in the dark, with fear and anxiety playing tricks on Sam's mind, and needing to stay out of sight of the few passing cars, it felt like climbing Mount Doom.
Dean would've laughed at the comparison, would've mussed Sam's hair and scoffed, "This? Naw, this is nothing but a country stroll, Sammy. Don't be a pussy." And Sam would’ve pushed him. It wouldn’t have done anything, but it would’ve made him feel better. ‘Course, he wouldn’t be out here at all if Dean were with him.
His insides felt hot, but his hands and feet were cold, and his cheeks were numb. His mind kept running around in circles, bouncing between questions like the small shaft of light from his flashlight over uneven ground. Was Dean okay? Had something happened to him in jail? Had he already been released? Was he out looking for Sam? Dad might've picked him up and taken him home before Sam ever got there.
He hadn't heard the Impala, though, and the Impala wasn’t quiet. And Dad wasn't supposed to be back for a couple days yet. Even if they'd given Dean his phone call right away, Dad probably wouldn’t have made it back yet.
That knowledge didn't stop part of Sam from pulling to go back to the house.
He hadn’t thought about what it would take to get in to see Dean as a minor without a guardian, not until he stood in front of the brick building.
It squatted like a fortress on the corner of Pleasant and Broadway, somehow dark even with the lights showing through the windows. The building came right up to the road, the parking lot behind it, off of Pleasant. Sam walked around it, but there were no fences. Lights shone through the glass doors leading to reception, but the other doors were steel and locked. Reception was a landmine of open floor, blocked off from the rest of the building by a high counter. Sam could've climbed it if he had to, even though it came up to his chin, but there was no way the agents behind it would’ve let him.
He didn’t know what to do. Dean might've been old enough for cops to be okay with him being home alone, but Sam was only eleven. They'd call Dad and then Child Protective Services, and Dad would make them leave, even though Sam was supposed to be in the school Spelling Bee in a month. No, if he wanted to see Dean, he had to do it without alerting the cops.
Ducking out of the sight when two uniforms came out, he watched them climb into one of the squad cars and pull away. Then he went looking. He found a couple barred windows that were too high to reach, even if he jumped, a ventilation shaft that was way too small, and—his heart leaped—a window with a dumpster under it, nothing but trees to bear witness.
Perfect.
Getting up was tricky. The top was over his head, and he had to be quiet to keep from drawing attention. The dumpster wasn't flush against the wall but was pulled out about two feet, and that made getting up both easier and harder. But once he got up, he was able to use the wall to balance. He placed his feet carefully when shuffling over to the window.
He slid in front of it slowly to keep from drawing attention, and to try to see anyone who might catch him before they saw him. Dean wouldn't give him away—if Dean was really there, if this was the room where they had him, if—but he couldn't be sure of anyone else.
The first thing he saw was bars. Then there was the sleeve of a leather jacket that made his lungs seize before he realized it was the wrong color and too big and had a skull-and-crossbones painted on the back. The guy had a shaved head and a red-and-white bandana around his neck. Sam could only see his face in profile, but he was glaring at something out of Sam’s eye line. Automatically, Sam shifted to see what he was looking at.
"You don't want your face caved in, you'll leave the kid alone," Skull-and-crossbones growled.
He appeared to be talking to a man in a suit who had squinty, dark liquid eyes. The suit rang his hands together, hunched and shrinking and guilty, but that didn’t stop his eyes from darting eagerly over Skull-and-crossbones’ shoulder.
Sam craned the other way to see who they were talking about.
Dean.
His brother slouched on the bench, face set in stubborn, challenging lines, arms crossed, and legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, too. It wasn’t the way he usually sat, even when he was pretending to be confident, but it also wasn’t how he sat when he was in pain. And Sam couldn’t see any bruises, so that was good.
"I didn't do anything," the Suit said.
Dean’s muscles locked tight like he was trying not to shift, then, and Sam wished he could get him out. Wished he was old enough to pretend to be Dad the way Dean sometimes did. Though, not in person. Sam didn’t think even Dean could pretend to be Dad in person.
"Maybe you should turn around, go hide in your corner, and not even think of looking at the kid, or I'll cave your face in anyway." The biker flexed a thickly muscled arm, and Sam thought he could do it. The Suit squeaked. Apparently, he did, too. That made Sam feel a little better.
Something shuffled off to the side of the building.
Sams's head whipped around. It unsettled his balance, and his feet slipped. He grabbed frantically for the ledge. His feet went out from under him and his stomach swooped, heart leaping into his throat. The brick scraped his hands, digging sharp, then he slammed into the side of the jail. His breath rushed form his lungs, chin clipping the wall. He scraped his fingers when they slipped off the ledge.
He hit the ground on his heels, his balance behind him, and stumbled head-first into the back of the dumpster, the metallic clang louder than the one in his head. It was louder still when the rest of him connected, but not loud enough to drown out the alarmed voices filtering through the window.
"What the--?"
"What're you doing in here?"
"There's something out there!"
Still dazed, Sam tipped forward, got his hands under him, then his knees, scrambling to his feet with no grace and no thought beyond away. Open sidewalk stretched out every direction but one, and Sam pushed off the dumpster, haring off for the trees.
Dean would never forgive him if CPS took him away because he was stupid enough to get caught.
His sneakers slapped the concrete—too loud, too loud—but he didn't dare slow down, needing distance more than he needed quiet. His ears strained back toward the jail, listening for slamming doors, for shouts, for rushing feet or dogs, but he hit the dirt sixteen feet later, leaves and twigs crunching underfoot with nothing but his heart pounding in his head.
Visibility dropped off sharply away from the lights, under the foliage. His breath pushed back at him. His eyes strained.
He slammed into the tree before he saw it, yelping in surprise from the sharp flare of pain in his wrist. He looked back. There trees between him and the jail. It might be enough.
He froze as he caught movement and saw one of the officers investigating, pacing slowly past the dumpster. Sam swallowed hard and forced his muscles to stay still, left hand clenched around the flashlight he'd need if the cop spotted him. When the cop crouched by where he'd fallen, Sam slowly drifted back and around the nearest tree. If he could see the cop, possibly the cop could see him. Adrenaline juddered through him, worse when the guy twisted to scan the trees, dark gaze moving slowly over every inch.
Automatically, Sam's right hand found the knife in his pocket, clenched around the handle. He wouldn't use it, not on a cop, but it made him feel better—less helpless.
The seconds crawled by and he counted them until, with a shrug, the cop pushed to his feet, opened the door, and headed back inside, shaking his head at whatever was said to him. The door shut behind him with a barely audible clang.
Sam slumped in relief. Dad was going to kill him.
He was shaking with leftover adrenaline when he put his back to the tree and slid down its side, but he’d worry about that in a minute. He just needed a moment to process that the cop was gone, he was safe, Dean was safe and close, and everything was okay.
Well, as okay as it was going to get until Dad showed up.
He tipped his head back, staring up at the dark blanket of leaves blocking out the stars, and let his heart settle, his breathing slow. With his arms and legs pulled in close, he felt almost cozy, and part of him wanted to just stay where he was, go to sleep, and worry about everything later. Wait here until Dad came and got Dean.
He couldn't, though. The cold crept in the longer he sat, stealing his ease and comfort, and reminding him he was alone in the dark, no walls or wards to keep him safe from the things that creeped in the night. He shivered, feeling like something had walked cold fingernails up his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Like remembering the dark things could summon them.
Awkwardly, feeling cold and stiff, Sam pushed to his feet. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, but that only meant the shadows were deeper, more ominous. Any one of them could be a monster.
Don't be ridiculous, Sammy, he could almost hear Dean saying. Nothing's going to get you.
"As long as I'm around," Sam murmured, finishing his older brother's oft repeated assurance, even that soft sound loud in the quiet rustling of spring breezes, and he shivered from more than cold. Dean wasn’t exactly around to make it true.
He swayed, missing his brother's solid warmth to lean on, then set his jaw and clicked on the flashlight.
*
Sam kept his head down once he reached the sidewalk, kept his shoulders back and tried to walk like Dean—like he knew where he was going and had every right to be there. It wouldn't do much to disguise his age if anyone looked closely, but—as long as he made it past the police station without drawing attention—anyone who did would probably just insist on driving him home. He could have them drop him at Ms. Emily's.
If Dean had been there, they could have just gone to her house for dinner. She'd offered to feed them more than once, but Dean didn't like taking hand-outs, or drawing attention to the fact that Dad was often gone. She'd ask too many questions, Dean insisted. In his more uncharitable moments, Sam wished she would. Wondered what it would be like if she took him and Dean in, took them away from Dad.
The thought made his stomach hurt.
He looked up, intending to check where he was in relation to the police station, to see if it was quiet enough for him to walk past or if he needed to avoid it, and stopped in surprise.
There was someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at him. She wasn't particularly tall, he didn't think, but she was unnaturally skinny, her arms disproportionately long. Her face looked strangely flat, like a cartoon who'd been smashed and then only partially reinflated, her mouth a wide, lipless slit.
Unnatural, his lizard brain said. Awareness crawled up his spine, heightening his senses, and again he curled his hand around the knife. She didn't move, hands visible and empty at her sides, eyes dark and fixed with unsettling intensity. She wasn't wearing a jacket or long-sleeved shirt, her skinny arms bare.
There was a street to Sam's left, across three lanes of traffic. Dean had said all the streets around here connected.
He edged closer, using the motion to shift unobtrusively onto the balls of his feet. "Hi," he said, trying to take control of the situation, silently counting off the distance between them. Twenty feet. "Are you lost?"
"Well, well, well,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. Her lips split wide in what might generously have been termed a smile. "If it isn't Sam Winchester. Must be my lucky day."
It took every ounce of determination he had not to back away. "Who are you?"
A hint of gold flared across her dark eyes. "Let's just say I'm a friend of your father's. So irresponsible of him, by the way, leaving you out here all alone."
"I'm not alone." Her voice had a low, rasping quality that scraped across his nerves like sandpaper. He slid a glance past her, to the Police Station, without quite meaning to.
"Ah," she taunted lightly, "but Dean's a little occupied, isn't he?" She turned her head, focusing those unsettling eyes on the jail. On Dean.
He'd taken two steps before he even realized it, drawn forward like he posed any kind of threat, knife drawn and clenched at his side. It was more than Dean had. "Leave him out of it!"
Her smile was lazy as she turned her head back, her eyes bright, hungry. Yellow. "Oh, I'm not interested in Dean-o, Sammy. You, though. I've got plans for you."
His lips felt numb. "What are you?" he managed.
"Let's just say," she drawled, "that your father's been looking for me."
Then she disappeared, wiped away like she'd never been.
*
Before he left, Dad said: “Sammy, stay with your brother. You don't go anywhere without him. Understand?"
Sam had, but Dad hadn’t anticipated Dean getting arrested. He hadn’t known and Sam hadn’t told him, and he had school. Not going to school would draw attention.
He told himself that was the reason he went, not that he thought he’d go crazy if he had to bounce around the empty house alone, missing and worrying about Dad and Dean both. So he got up when he was supposed to, showered, dressed, and packed up his books, just like any other day, then made the trek to the elementary school. His stomach rumbled and it was longer and colder without Dean—quieter, too, since Sam didn't have anyone to talk to—but no one gave him a second look.
*
He was starting to feel like a ghost when Brian Thompson shoved him into the wall outside the gym. It was cinderblock and didn't give, and pain flared threateningly in Sam's wrist when his weight landed on it.
Dean would've pushed off the wall and shoved back, probably thrown a punch. Probably would've gotten expelled, too, and then the school would've had to call Dad. The last thing Sam needed was for the school to call Dad, even if he really, really wanted to throw that punch.
He rolled off the wall away from Brian, setting his feet once he had the bully in sight, and scowled. “What do you want, Brian?”
"Aww," the bully taunted, "if it isn't ickle Sammy Winchester. You running away, Freak? Gonna go cry to Mommy? Oh, wait. . . ."
The words hit like Brian wanted them to. But where he probably hoped Sam would start crying, it felt like a bomb had gone off in Sam's heart, expanding bright and hot through his chest, down his arms until they shook in fists, up over his vision, hazing it red. He wanted to break Brian's nose, wanted to feel the snap-pop of cartilage breaking, wanted to see the rush of blood pour down over Brian's stupid, sneering lips. He wanted to crack Brian's chest open, the way he'd cracked open Sam's. Nobody got to talk about Mom like that.
He wasn't sure what held him back. If it was Dad's No Fighting at School policy, or the knowledge that normal kids didn't want to break their classmates, or if he knew he'd start crying like Brian wanted him to if he moved, if he broke open that final dam. But he didn't move, and he didn't know what was on his face but, after a moment, Brian's faltered, and the bigger boy stepped back, scowling extra hard.
"Freak," he spat, and turned away. Sam did, too.
"No wonder that demon has plans for you."
Sam jolted, the anger washing out like it'd never been, and spun back. But Brian wasn't looking at him, hadn't turned or slowed, was too far away to have murmured those words in Sam's ear. He looked around, wondering if he'd misheard the voice, if someone else had said that, but there was no one else close enough.
He ducked his head away from the looks and headed to class.
*
He couldn't figure out why he thought he’d wanted to sit through school, though. His thoughts kept drifting to Dean, mentally retracing his steps back to the Police Station. He imagined walking in, asking to see Dean, being led back to the holding cell.
Dean would've been slouched back against the wall, trying to be cool. When he saw Sam, he would’ve jumped to his feet with a smile, come up to the bars. "Hey, Sammy. Whatcha doing here, squirt?"
"I wanted to see you."
Dean would’ve cuffed his head and mussed his hair. "Why would you wanna do that? I'm gonna be out of here in no time. You'll see."
Or he could’ve sat out in the trees outside the station, keeping watch from afar. The woman was probably gone—
"Sam."
He jerked his head around to muffled laughter and looked up at Mrs. Carroll. "Since you've been paying such close attention, how about you pick up reading where Liza left off, hm?"
He ducked his head, eyes scanning the pages before him, but he knew they'd been read already. He flipped the page, but he couldn’t been listening. He couldn't even begin to guess how far they'd gotten. He looked at Mrs. Carroll helplessly.
"I thought so. Remain seated, please." Then she returned to the front of the classroom. "Everyone else, you can line up for lunch."
The clatter of twenty students pushing their chairs back eclipsed the sound of the door opening, but Sam saw her slip out of the room. He kept his hands folded on the desk, ignored the snide words from some of his classmates, and waited for her to come back. It didn’t take long
"Follow Mr. Dempsey, class,” she said. She stood by her desk while the students filed out. She smiled slightly, fondly, as they passed her, the way she usually watched him. The way he’d always thought a mother would.
He ducked his head when the door closed and she finally turned her attention to him. He didn’t want to see the concerned pinch between her brows. But he stood obediently when she beckoned him over to her desk.
"Is everything ok, Sam?” She was shorter than him when she sat at her desk chair. It made it harder to avoid her eyes. “It isn't like you to be so distracted."
"Everything's fine, Mrs. Carroll."
“Just fine?” she teased gently.
He nodded and kept his head down, even though Dean would’ve known that meant something was wrong. Mrs. Carroll probably didn’t know that.
But maybe she did. She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye. "Are you sure? I'm here to help, Sam. You can talk to me about anything, I promise."
He lifted his eyes. Her were soft and warm, encouraging, and he tried to imagine how she’d react if he told her Dad was away on a hunt and Dean was in jail and he’d had to go hungry last night and this morning because they didn’t have any money and it had been too late after he got home to bother Ms. Emily.
He didn’t have to try to imagine Dad’s reaction. "I'm ok."
"Ok," she agreed after a moment. Standing, she gestured him with her. "Come on. I'll walk you to the cafeteria."
She watched him expectantly as they approached the door, then stopped in front of it so he couldn’t pass. "Don’t you have to get your lunch?"
"Uh—"
His stomach growled. Dean would've said he had lunch money, but Sam hated lying and he hadn't been prepared to do it. His stomach felt like it was eating itself. A blush painted his cheeks. "I forgot it," he admitted.
"I wish you would have told me sooner. We could have called your father—"
But Sam was already shaking his head. "He's working."
“I’m sure he could’ve worked something out.”
Sam just shook his head again. It made her mouth go tight, but she just said, “Alright. Wait here.”
Stupidly, he did, watching curiously while she went back to her desk and pulled something out of her purse. When she came back, it was with five dollars folded between her fingers.
He stepped back. "I can't—"
"You can," Mrs. Carroll insisted. "Your dad’s not here, but I am. I don't let any of my students go hungry. Capisce?"
Bashfully, he let her place the money in his hands, folded his fingers tight around it, tight like his insides felt. "Thank you, Mrs. Carroll." He turned away.
"I could just eat your right up."
He whirled back, stumbling back into the cafeteria door, because he voice had sounded right beside his ear, a dark, rough rasp beneath it, doubling it.
But Mrs. Carroll was already gone.
*
By the time the bell rang, Sam had never been more relieved to get out of school in his life. He kept thinking he heard things, like Tyrone hissing behind him about the monsters wanting him back, only to turn and find him slouched back in his seat, glazed eyes focused on Mrs. Carroll.
It'd taken him a minute to realize Sam was staring at him, then he'd frowned and defensively demanded, "What?"
Even if Tyrone were the type to talk bad about him and pretend ignorance after, Sam didn't think he'd bother to sell it. And even if he would or did, Bryce would never have been able to keep his mouth shut about it. But Bryce had looked just as clueless.
When he had everything packed away, he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He wasn't surprised when one of his classmates immediately shoved past, knocking his bag off his shoulder and him into the desk.
"What are the voices telling you now, Freak?"
He’d never heard the kid speak before and wasn’t even sure he’d heard him now. He half-expected someone else to materialize behind him, just to bump into him. But no one did. After a moment, Sam resettled his backpack and followed the rest of the kids out.
Someone shoved him into the doorjamb. “Watch it, Freak. Or the demon’s going to eat you.”
He turned his head quickly, but he couldn’t see who’d spoken.
"Everything ok, Sam?" Mrs. Carroll asked. She had that pinched look again, the one that made his insides squirm guiltily.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, ducking out before she could ask anymore. The last thing he needed was his teacher to think he was going crazy.
Part Two
Recipient: lyryk
Rating: T
Word Count or Media: 23,676
Warnings: Show-typical violence
Author's Notes: Ok, there are so many things I want to say, but this thing is already massive, so I’m going to try to keep it short. First, thanks to the mods for being so understanding and supportive! Y’all are awesome. And, second, thanks to lyryk for the awesome prompts. I had a lot of fun—maybe even a little too much fun—writing this story. That said, it’s not precisely the story I started out to write, and it’s probably not the story you were expecting, lyryk, but I hope you like anyway. Title from Richard Siken’s Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.
Third, hurt/comfort bingo: On the run.
Prompt: Preseries – why did wee!Sam appear so nonchalant when Dean had been sent to the home for boys and was supposedly missing? I’d love something along the lines of John having to wipe Sam’s memory or doing something drastic to make him stop panicking about what had happened to Dean.
Summary: With Dad hunting and Dean gone, Sam has to manage on his own.
Sam finished the last problem on his math homework and flipped the book closed, then his notebook, stacking them neatly before looking up—and frowning.
The house was dark. Sometimes Dean wouldn’t turn on the lights if he was watching a horror movie, but the house was quiet, too, no screams or growls or cheesy music drifting into the kitchen from the TV in the living room. Sam listened closely, but there were no sounds at all, just the house—being.
“Dean?” he called, his voice sudden and small and still, somehow, too loud.
Nothing.
There should have been something, though. Right? His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t had dinner yet as he searched out the clock, but he didn’t need the green 7:39 staring back at him to know it was late. Too late. Dean was supposed to have been right behind him. He was just going to run to the Market, get them something for dinner, then come home. He’d left right after school.
Anxious, Sam pushed up, clinging to the back of the chair like it could protect him from the dark. Because what if Dean had come home? What if something had gotten him when he came in and Sam just hadn’t noticed? It could still be out there, waiting, ready to pounce on him the moment he left the kitchen, ready to eat him.
Dean wouldn’t have gone quietly, though. Sam would have heard him. He always yelled when he got home, and he would’ve yelled louder if there’d been a monster. So if he wasn’t here, he never made it home. “Dean?”
Sam trailed close to the wall when he padded across the floor, trailing his hand over the light switch when he passed so light flooded out behind him. He checked the whole house, turning on the lights as he went, but there was definitely no Dean and no sign of Dean.
If Sam hadn’t come home when he was supposed to, Dean would’ve immediately gone looking for him. Sam wasn’t supposed to go out alone, though, especially not after dark. And if something happened, he was supposed to call Dad.
Just—he didn’t know something had happened. Sure, it wasn’t like Dean to disappear, but he could have met some girl—Rebecca Witherspoon, maybe, he’d been talking about her—and gotten talking and lost track of time. Maybe she’d convinced him to go back to her place, and maybe that was in the wrong direction, and maybe he had a really long walk to get back home.
Or maybe a monster got him and Sam would never know.
He’d been hesitating, but now he grabbed his knife and a flashlight, fished the key out of the bowl by the door and locked up behind him. It wouldn’t hurt anything for Sam to walk up to the Market, just to check. If he didn’t find Dean between here and there, he could call Dad.
He clicked on the flashlight and started walking.
*
It was a short walk. The Market was less than a quarter mile from their rental house, doorstep-to-doorstep, along Forestburgh Road. Dean would’ve gone that way, continuing straight after Sam split off, but Sam took the backway, cutting through their neighbors’ yards in a more-or-less straight line, because that’s the way Dean would have taken to come back.
He looked, but he never saw movement, never glimpsed Dean's familiar silhouette.
There weren’t any wooded areas between the Market and the Colony for Dean to get lost in, not that Dean usually got lost, but Sam called his name, anyway, in case he’d fallen and broken his leg, or one of the neighbors had locked him in the cellar. You learned a lot of unpleasant possibilities researching the missing and dead.
Dean didn’t answer, which was maybe good or maybe just meant he was unconscious. Sam felt cold and jittery by the time he reached the Market’s parking lot. There weren’t many cars out, the blues and blacks and greens hard to differentiate in the dark, but none of them were the Impala and Dean didn’t have a car, so it didn’t matter. When he tried the Market door, he found it open, and pushed through.
It felt empty. It didn’t look any different, though, had the same tall, rich wooden shelves gathered close and filled with stuff, a low ceiling, fluorescent lights, three stand-alone checkout lanes, stacks of fruit, bright white tile floors. But where it had felt cozy when he'd come in with Dean, now it was claustrophobic, the air pressing too close, the shelves too close, the rest of the room too big, hollowed out like the bottom of his stomach.
He made himself keep walking anyway, even when he caught the eye of a guy older than dad in the Market's red vest. He had furrows in his brow, a big nose, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sam's too big sweatshirt and overcoat.
Sam ducked his head to avoid his eyes, letting his too-long bangs shield him, and headed straight for the back of the store. He didn't run into Dean on the way. At the back of the store, he walked quickly, glancing down each aisle, hoping for a glimpse of bristly blond hair. He reached the end and turned back.
The older guy appeared at the end of the aisle, broom at his side like a staff. Sam hunched his shoulders and kept moving, feeling like he was doing something wrong, but he wasn’t. The feeling wound his guts tighter with every aisle the guy paced him to.
He jerked to a halt when a girl about Dean's age, sweet faced, with a perky blond ponytail passed by. She had a trash bag with her and offered him a smile before disappearing through the Staff Only doors. She was the kind of pretty Dean usually waxed poetically about, and he thought she looked vaguely familiar. But he didn't want to think about what it meant that his brother wasn't hanging around her trying to be smooth.
The Glaring Guy got him moving again, suspicious stare forbidding. If the guy—the manager, probably, or maybe the owner—had stared at Dean that way, it might explain why his brother wasn't here.
It didn't explain where he'd gone, though, and that was really what Sam cared about.
He left under the glare of the same dark eyes and wasn't surprised when the door was locked behind him. Two cars were missing from the parking lot, and Sam kept walking forward, straight through the parking lot to the road. There weren't any sidewalks, but there wasn't much traffic, either. He stared down the road, toward The Colony, looking for any sign of Dean, and his gut clenched when he didn't find any.
The other direction wasn't any better, the road disappearing into darkness even before it curved out of sight. There were plenty of trees and places to get lost that way, and no way for Sam to search them alone, in the dark. If Dean was there, he'd have to wait for Dad.
The thought made Sam's chest feel tight, his stomach sick. He turned away from it, back to the Market. He saw movement through the windows and started circling left, away from their temporary home and the door the manager/owner would likely use, drawn to the last place he had to look like a compass to north.
Monsters didn't usually hide bodies in dumpsters—they didn't usually hide them at all—but people did. Dread dragged his feet the closer he got, prompted him to hug the wall. That, and habit. We do what we do and we shut up about it included being stealthy so people didn’t see them where they weren’t supposed to be.
Then he realized he could hear voices. The electric shock-jolt of hope stole his breath a moment, even as his ears strained to differentiate the voices. There was a mix of girls and guys, multiples of each, but he couldn't pick out Dean's and couldn’t tell how many. He approached the corner quicker than his dad would've liked, but he needed to find Dean.
Caution kept him from bursting out into the open, though. Instead, he stopped at the corner and slowly peeked around the edge. There were five girls and four boys. One of the girls was the blonde who'd smiled at him, her vest draped over the closed dumpster. Two other girls, both brunettes, had vests, but only one of the guys did. They were all about Dean's age, definitely high schoolers, but Dean wasn't among them.
This was turning into the unfunniest game of Where’s Waldo ever.
He was about to turn away—they were smoking, and it looked like the bulk of the group had been there awhile—when the tallest guy pulled the joint from his lips and said, "Were you here when Winchester got arrested?"
That stopped him. Shock—arrested? Dean?—quickly changed to dread and anger as the others laughed.
Amid the laughter, the blonde smacked the tall guy, said, "That's not funny, Brian. He probably needed that stuff."
"Then he should have paid for it," one of the brunettes chimed in.
"You think they'll beat him for it?" the guy in the vest asked, laughter in his voice.
It was a joke, Sam knew it was a joke, but he must've made a sound because the blonde's head came up, blue eyes locking immediately on Sam. Something about them was off. He backed up, but she moved faster.
"You're Dean's brother," she said, "aren't you?"
He stopped but she didn’t, pinned in place by the eyes of her friends. She held her hands between them like she was trying to calm a spooked animal. Sam felt like a spooked animal. If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between his legs, and that was stupid. He was being stupid. They were just kids, like him. He pushed his sleeves back to clear his hands. Still felt small. "Did Dean really get arrested?"
She grimaced, lips pulling into a sad smile. "I'm sorry. Mr. Hewlett caught him. You didn't. . . ?"
He shook his head quickly. The idea sloshed around his brain, churning unpleasantly. They were supposed to be keeping their heads down, not getting into fights and not drawing attention. Arrested was drawing attention. Dad would kill him.
Did Dad know?
"I'm sorry.” She’d gotten closer while he wasn’t paying attention, close enough to reach out and touch. "Where's you dad?" Her fingers brushed the back of his hand.
Sam jolted back like he'd been shocked. "I should go," he told the weird looks. Don’t draw attention, but it was probably too late for that.
The girl didn’t try to touch him again. He studied her face, trying to figure out if Dean had talked about her, if he should offer her something. But he didn’t know what, and if Dad got home to find Sam out after dark and Dean not there, Sam would be in PT until he died. So he gave a small as he back away, two steps, then three, until he'd doubled the distance between them, then tripled it.
He hesitated before turning away, though, bit his lip. "Do you know where the jail is?" he asked finally.
"That way." She jerked his head towards the Colony. "Turn right on Broadway. It's at the corner of Pleasant Street."
"Thanks." He shoved his hands in his sweatshirt's pouch, wrapping one hand around the flashlight, the other around his pocketknife, then left. He listened footsteps following him, but none did. Instead, they started talking again.
"You going to visit him in jail, too?" one of the guys asked.
”Maybe, the blonde answered coyly.
"Try not to run this one off."
*
He should have gone home. That was where Dad would go after he picked up Dean. That was where he would expect Sam to be. But that temporary house wasn't home without Dean there, and the fear wasn't gone. Less, different—but not gone. More than anything, he just wanted to see that Dean was okay with his own two eyes. So he started walking.
It was a long walk. Only two miles, but with no sidewalks along Forestburgh, in the dark, with fear and anxiety playing tricks on Sam's mind, and needing to stay out of sight of the few passing cars, it felt like climbing Mount Doom.
Dean would've laughed at the comparison, would've mussed Sam's hair and scoffed, "This? Naw, this is nothing but a country stroll, Sammy. Don't be a pussy." And Sam would’ve pushed him. It wouldn’t have done anything, but it would’ve made him feel better. ‘Course, he wouldn’t be out here at all if Dean were with him.
His insides felt hot, but his hands and feet were cold, and his cheeks were numb. His mind kept running around in circles, bouncing between questions like the small shaft of light from his flashlight over uneven ground. Was Dean okay? Had something happened to him in jail? Had he already been released? Was he out looking for Sam? Dad might've picked him up and taken him home before Sam ever got there.
He hadn't heard the Impala, though, and the Impala wasn’t quiet. And Dad wasn't supposed to be back for a couple days yet. Even if they'd given Dean his phone call right away, Dad probably wouldn’t have made it back yet.
That knowledge didn't stop part of Sam from pulling to go back to the house.
He hadn’t thought about what it would take to get in to see Dean as a minor without a guardian, not until he stood in front of the brick building.
It squatted like a fortress on the corner of Pleasant and Broadway, somehow dark even with the lights showing through the windows. The building came right up to the road, the parking lot behind it, off of Pleasant. Sam walked around it, but there were no fences. Lights shone through the glass doors leading to reception, but the other doors were steel and locked. Reception was a landmine of open floor, blocked off from the rest of the building by a high counter. Sam could've climbed it if he had to, even though it came up to his chin, but there was no way the agents behind it would’ve let him.
He didn’t know what to do. Dean might've been old enough for cops to be okay with him being home alone, but Sam was only eleven. They'd call Dad and then Child Protective Services, and Dad would make them leave, even though Sam was supposed to be in the school Spelling Bee in a month. No, if he wanted to see Dean, he had to do it without alerting the cops.
Ducking out of the sight when two uniforms came out, he watched them climb into one of the squad cars and pull away. Then he went looking. He found a couple barred windows that were too high to reach, even if he jumped, a ventilation shaft that was way too small, and—his heart leaped—a window with a dumpster under it, nothing but trees to bear witness.
Perfect.
Getting up was tricky. The top was over his head, and he had to be quiet to keep from drawing attention. The dumpster wasn't flush against the wall but was pulled out about two feet, and that made getting up both easier and harder. But once he got up, he was able to use the wall to balance. He placed his feet carefully when shuffling over to the window.
He slid in front of it slowly to keep from drawing attention, and to try to see anyone who might catch him before they saw him. Dean wouldn't give him away—if Dean was really there, if this was the room where they had him, if—but he couldn't be sure of anyone else.
The first thing he saw was bars. Then there was the sleeve of a leather jacket that made his lungs seize before he realized it was the wrong color and too big and had a skull-and-crossbones painted on the back. The guy had a shaved head and a red-and-white bandana around his neck. Sam could only see his face in profile, but he was glaring at something out of Sam’s eye line. Automatically, Sam shifted to see what he was looking at.
"You don't want your face caved in, you'll leave the kid alone," Skull-and-crossbones growled.
He appeared to be talking to a man in a suit who had squinty, dark liquid eyes. The suit rang his hands together, hunched and shrinking and guilty, but that didn’t stop his eyes from darting eagerly over Skull-and-crossbones’ shoulder.
Sam craned the other way to see who they were talking about.
Dean.
His brother slouched on the bench, face set in stubborn, challenging lines, arms crossed, and legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, too. It wasn’t the way he usually sat, even when he was pretending to be confident, but it also wasn’t how he sat when he was in pain. And Sam couldn’t see any bruises, so that was good.
"I didn't do anything," the Suit said.
Dean’s muscles locked tight like he was trying not to shift, then, and Sam wished he could get him out. Wished he was old enough to pretend to be Dad the way Dean sometimes did. Though, not in person. Sam didn’t think even Dean could pretend to be Dad in person.
"Maybe you should turn around, go hide in your corner, and not even think of looking at the kid, or I'll cave your face in anyway." The biker flexed a thickly muscled arm, and Sam thought he could do it. The Suit squeaked. Apparently, he did, too. That made Sam feel a little better.
Something shuffled off to the side of the building.
Sams's head whipped around. It unsettled his balance, and his feet slipped. He grabbed frantically for the ledge. His feet went out from under him and his stomach swooped, heart leaping into his throat. The brick scraped his hands, digging sharp, then he slammed into the side of the jail. His breath rushed form his lungs, chin clipping the wall. He scraped his fingers when they slipped off the ledge.
He hit the ground on his heels, his balance behind him, and stumbled head-first into the back of the dumpster, the metallic clang louder than the one in his head. It was louder still when the rest of him connected, but not loud enough to drown out the alarmed voices filtering through the window.
"What the--?"
"What're you doing in here?"
"There's something out there!"
Still dazed, Sam tipped forward, got his hands under him, then his knees, scrambling to his feet with no grace and no thought beyond away. Open sidewalk stretched out every direction but one, and Sam pushed off the dumpster, haring off for the trees.
Dean would never forgive him if CPS took him away because he was stupid enough to get caught.
His sneakers slapped the concrete—too loud, too loud—but he didn't dare slow down, needing distance more than he needed quiet. His ears strained back toward the jail, listening for slamming doors, for shouts, for rushing feet or dogs, but he hit the dirt sixteen feet later, leaves and twigs crunching underfoot with nothing but his heart pounding in his head.
Visibility dropped off sharply away from the lights, under the foliage. His breath pushed back at him. His eyes strained.
He slammed into the tree before he saw it, yelping in surprise from the sharp flare of pain in his wrist. He looked back. There trees between him and the jail. It might be enough.
He froze as he caught movement and saw one of the officers investigating, pacing slowly past the dumpster. Sam swallowed hard and forced his muscles to stay still, left hand clenched around the flashlight he'd need if the cop spotted him. When the cop crouched by where he'd fallen, Sam slowly drifted back and around the nearest tree. If he could see the cop, possibly the cop could see him. Adrenaline juddered through him, worse when the guy twisted to scan the trees, dark gaze moving slowly over every inch.
Automatically, Sam's right hand found the knife in his pocket, clenched around the handle. He wouldn't use it, not on a cop, but it made him feel better—less helpless.
The seconds crawled by and he counted them until, with a shrug, the cop pushed to his feet, opened the door, and headed back inside, shaking his head at whatever was said to him. The door shut behind him with a barely audible clang.
Sam slumped in relief. Dad was going to kill him.
He was shaking with leftover adrenaline when he put his back to the tree and slid down its side, but he’d worry about that in a minute. He just needed a moment to process that the cop was gone, he was safe, Dean was safe and close, and everything was okay.
Well, as okay as it was going to get until Dad showed up.
He tipped his head back, staring up at the dark blanket of leaves blocking out the stars, and let his heart settle, his breathing slow. With his arms and legs pulled in close, he felt almost cozy, and part of him wanted to just stay where he was, go to sleep, and worry about everything later. Wait here until Dad came and got Dean.
He couldn't, though. The cold crept in the longer he sat, stealing his ease and comfort, and reminding him he was alone in the dark, no walls or wards to keep him safe from the things that creeped in the night. He shivered, feeling like something had walked cold fingernails up his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Like remembering the dark things could summon them.
Awkwardly, feeling cold and stiff, Sam pushed to his feet. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, but that only meant the shadows were deeper, more ominous. Any one of them could be a monster.
Don't be ridiculous, Sammy, he could almost hear Dean saying. Nothing's going to get you.
"As long as I'm around," Sam murmured, finishing his older brother's oft repeated assurance, even that soft sound loud in the quiet rustling of spring breezes, and he shivered from more than cold. Dean wasn’t exactly around to make it true.
He swayed, missing his brother's solid warmth to lean on, then set his jaw and clicked on the flashlight.
*
Sam kept his head down once he reached the sidewalk, kept his shoulders back and tried to walk like Dean—like he knew where he was going and had every right to be there. It wouldn't do much to disguise his age if anyone looked closely, but—as long as he made it past the police station without drawing attention—anyone who did would probably just insist on driving him home. He could have them drop him at Ms. Emily's.
If Dean had been there, they could have just gone to her house for dinner. She'd offered to feed them more than once, but Dean didn't like taking hand-outs, or drawing attention to the fact that Dad was often gone. She'd ask too many questions, Dean insisted. In his more uncharitable moments, Sam wished she would. Wondered what it would be like if she took him and Dean in, took them away from Dad.
The thought made his stomach hurt.
He looked up, intending to check where he was in relation to the police station, to see if it was quiet enough for him to walk past or if he needed to avoid it, and stopped in surprise.
There was someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at him. She wasn't particularly tall, he didn't think, but she was unnaturally skinny, her arms disproportionately long. Her face looked strangely flat, like a cartoon who'd been smashed and then only partially reinflated, her mouth a wide, lipless slit.
Unnatural, his lizard brain said. Awareness crawled up his spine, heightening his senses, and again he curled his hand around the knife. She didn't move, hands visible and empty at her sides, eyes dark and fixed with unsettling intensity. She wasn't wearing a jacket or long-sleeved shirt, her skinny arms bare.
There was a street to Sam's left, across three lanes of traffic. Dean had said all the streets around here connected.
He edged closer, using the motion to shift unobtrusively onto the balls of his feet. "Hi," he said, trying to take control of the situation, silently counting off the distance between them. Twenty feet. "Are you lost?"
"Well, well, well,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. Her lips split wide in what might generously have been termed a smile. "If it isn't Sam Winchester. Must be my lucky day."
It took every ounce of determination he had not to back away. "Who are you?"
A hint of gold flared across her dark eyes. "Let's just say I'm a friend of your father's. So irresponsible of him, by the way, leaving you out here all alone."
"I'm not alone." Her voice had a low, rasping quality that scraped across his nerves like sandpaper. He slid a glance past her, to the Police Station, without quite meaning to.
"Ah," she taunted lightly, "but Dean's a little occupied, isn't he?" She turned her head, focusing those unsettling eyes on the jail. On Dean.
He'd taken two steps before he even realized it, drawn forward like he posed any kind of threat, knife drawn and clenched at his side. It was more than Dean had. "Leave him out of it!"
Her smile was lazy as she turned her head back, her eyes bright, hungry. Yellow. "Oh, I'm not interested in Dean-o, Sammy. You, though. I've got plans for you."
His lips felt numb. "What are you?" he managed.
"Let's just say," she drawled, "that your father's been looking for me."
Then she disappeared, wiped away like she'd never been.
*
Before he left, Dad said: “Sammy, stay with your brother. You don't go anywhere without him. Understand?"
Sam had, but Dad hadn’t anticipated Dean getting arrested. He hadn’t known and Sam hadn’t told him, and he had school. Not going to school would draw attention.
He told himself that was the reason he went, not that he thought he’d go crazy if he had to bounce around the empty house alone, missing and worrying about Dad and Dean both. So he got up when he was supposed to, showered, dressed, and packed up his books, just like any other day, then made the trek to the elementary school. His stomach rumbled and it was longer and colder without Dean—quieter, too, since Sam didn't have anyone to talk to—but no one gave him a second look.
*
He was starting to feel like a ghost when Brian Thompson shoved him into the wall outside the gym. It was cinderblock and didn't give, and pain flared threateningly in Sam's wrist when his weight landed on it.
Dean would've pushed off the wall and shoved back, probably thrown a punch. Probably would've gotten expelled, too, and then the school would've had to call Dad. The last thing Sam needed was for the school to call Dad, even if he really, really wanted to throw that punch.
He rolled off the wall away from Brian, setting his feet once he had the bully in sight, and scowled. “What do you want, Brian?”
"Aww," the bully taunted, "if it isn't ickle Sammy Winchester. You running away, Freak? Gonna go cry to Mommy? Oh, wait. . . ."
The words hit like Brian wanted them to. But where he probably hoped Sam would start crying, it felt like a bomb had gone off in Sam's heart, expanding bright and hot through his chest, down his arms until they shook in fists, up over his vision, hazing it red. He wanted to break Brian's nose, wanted to feel the snap-pop of cartilage breaking, wanted to see the rush of blood pour down over Brian's stupid, sneering lips. He wanted to crack Brian's chest open, the way he'd cracked open Sam's. Nobody got to talk about Mom like that.
He wasn't sure what held him back. If it was Dad's No Fighting at School policy, or the knowledge that normal kids didn't want to break their classmates, or if he knew he'd start crying like Brian wanted him to if he moved, if he broke open that final dam. But he didn't move, and he didn't know what was on his face but, after a moment, Brian's faltered, and the bigger boy stepped back, scowling extra hard.
"Freak," he spat, and turned away. Sam did, too.
"No wonder that demon has plans for you."
Sam jolted, the anger washing out like it'd never been, and spun back. But Brian wasn't looking at him, hadn't turned or slowed, was too far away to have murmured those words in Sam's ear. He looked around, wondering if he'd misheard the voice, if someone else had said that, but there was no one else close enough.
He ducked his head away from the looks and headed to class.
*
He couldn't figure out why he thought he’d wanted to sit through school, though. His thoughts kept drifting to Dean, mentally retracing his steps back to the Police Station. He imagined walking in, asking to see Dean, being led back to the holding cell.
Dean would've been slouched back against the wall, trying to be cool. When he saw Sam, he would’ve jumped to his feet with a smile, come up to the bars. "Hey, Sammy. Whatcha doing here, squirt?"
"I wanted to see you."
Dean would’ve cuffed his head and mussed his hair. "Why would you wanna do that? I'm gonna be out of here in no time. You'll see."
Or he could’ve sat out in the trees outside the station, keeping watch from afar. The woman was probably gone—
"Sam."
He jerked his head around to muffled laughter and looked up at Mrs. Carroll. "Since you've been paying such close attention, how about you pick up reading where Liza left off, hm?"
He ducked his head, eyes scanning the pages before him, but he knew they'd been read already. He flipped the page, but he couldn’t been listening. He couldn't even begin to guess how far they'd gotten. He looked at Mrs. Carroll helplessly.
"I thought so. Remain seated, please." Then she returned to the front of the classroom. "Everyone else, you can line up for lunch."
The clatter of twenty students pushing their chairs back eclipsed the sound of the door opening, but Sam saw her slip out of the room. He kept his hands folded on the desk, ignored the snide words from some of his classmates, and waited for her to come back. It didn’t take long
"Follow Mr. Dempsey, class,” she said. She stood by her desk while the students filed out. She smiled slightly, fondly, as they passed her, the way she usually watched him. The way he’d always thought a mother would.
He ducked his head when the door closed and she finally turned her attention to him. He didn’t want to see the concerned pinch between her brows. But he stood obediently when she beckoned him over to her desk.
"Is everything ok, Sam?” She was shorter than him when she sat at her desk chair. It made it harder to avoid her eyes. “It isn't like you to be so distracted."
"Everything's fine, Mrs. Carroll."
“Just fine?” she teased gently.
He nodded and kept his head down, even though Dean would’ve known that meant something was wrong. Mrs. Carroll probably didn’t know that.
But maybe she did. She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye. "Are you sure? I'm here to help, Sam. You can talk to me about anything, I promise."
He lifted his eyes. Her were soft and warm, encouraging, and he tried to imagine how she’d react if he told her Dad was away on a hunt and Dean was in jail and he’d had to go hungry last night and this morning because they didn’t have any money and it had been too late after he got home to bother Ms. Emily.
He didn’t have to try to imagine Dad’s reaction. "I'm ok."
"Ok," she agreed after a moment. Standing, she gestured him with her. "Come on. I'll walk you to the cafeteria."
She watched him expectantly as they approached the door, then stopped in front of it so he couldn’t pass. "Don’t you have to get your lunch?"
"Uh—"
His stomach growled. Dean would've said he had lunch money, but Sam hated lying and he hadn't been prepared to do it. His stomach felt like it was eating itself. A blush painted his cheeks. "I forgot it," he admitted.
"I wish you would have told me sooner. We could have called your father—"
But Sam was already shaking his head. "He's working."
“I’m sure he could’ve worked something out.”
Sam just shook his head again. It made her mouth go tight, but she just said, “Alright. Wait here.”
Stupidly, he did, watching curiously while she went back to her desk and pulled something out of her purse. When she came back, it was with five dollars folded between her fingers.
He stepped back. "I can't—"
"You can," Mrs. Carroll insisted. "Your dad’s not here, but I am. I don't let any of my students go hungry. Capisce?"
Bashfully, he let her place the money in his hands, folded his fingers tight around it, tight like his insides felt. "Thank you, Mrs. Carroll." He turned away.
"I could just eat your right up."
He whirled back, stumbling back into the cafeteria door, because he voice had sounded right beside his ear, a dark, rough rasp beneath it, doubling it.
But Mrs. Carroll was already gone.
*
By the time the bell rang, Sam had never been more relieved to get out of school in his life. He kept thinking he heard things, like Tyrone hissing behind him about the monsters wanting him back, only to turn and find him slouched back in his seat, glazed eyes focused on Mrs. Carroll.
It'd taken him a minute to realize Sam was staring at him, then he'd frowned and defensively demanded, "What?"
Even if Tyrone were the type to talk bad about him and pretend ignorance after, Sam didn't think he'd bother to sell it. And even if he would or did, Bryce would never have been able to keep his mouth shut about it. But Bryce had looked just as clueless.
When he had everything packed away, he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He wasn't surprised when one of his classmates immediately shoved past, knocking his bag off his shoulder and him into the desk.
"What are the voices telling you now, Freak?"
He’d never heard the kid speak before and wasn’t even sure he’d heard him now. He half-expected someone else to materialize behind him, just to bump into him. But no one did. After a moment, Sam resettled his backpack and followed the rest of the kids out.
Someone shoved him into the doorjamb. “Watch it, Freak. Or the demon’s going to eat you.”
He turned his head quickly, but he couldn’t see who’d spoken.
"Everything ok, Sam?" Mrs. Carroll asked. She had that pinched look again, the one that made his insides squirm guiltily.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, ducking out before she could ask anymore. The last thing he needed was his teacher to think he was going crazy.
Part Two