Fic: Trouble
Title: Trouble
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,800
Genre: gen, angst, hurt no comfort, wee!chesters, wee!chesters fending for themselves, school, bullies, outcast
Characters: Sam, OCs
Summary: When 11-year-old Sam gets to stay home alone while Dad and Dean are on a hunt, he's thrilled to get to finally live like a normal kid, staying out of the trouble that always seems to come with being a Winchester, but things never work out as planned.
Finally! As Sam watched the Impala drive off, leaving him at his new school, Sam grinned to himself. Now that Dean went with Dad on the hunt instead of sticking around to babysit Sam, Sam could finally be a normal kid, a good kid. Whenever Dad and Dean were around, whenever that Winchester-y vibe was concentrated all in one place, trouble was always sure soon to follow.
Going in the front door of his elementary-school building, Sam mused about other things it could be. Maybe it was that Dean loved trouble and excelled at creating it wherever he went. Even though they were always in different schools now, news seemed to trickle down among teachers from the high school that Sam was his little brother and to expect similar behavior. It could even be that the monsters they hunted created that vibe, but this time, the monster was half a day’s hike away in the woods, so even if it was that, it wouldn’t affect Sam.
Sam sat down proudly at his desk and took out his books. Before his teachers started giving him That Look, sometimes he managed to be the teacher’s pet. To get praised for being a good student, for being dutiful about normal things, for being diligent and insightful and scholarly ... he craved it. He tried to look bright and sunny and normal when the teacher came in the room.
The whole day went great. He forgot himself in gym for a moment and was far too skilled at archery, which these other students were trying for the first time, but considering Sam had more than once used the bow-hunting skills Dad had forced upon them to kill a moving creature (usually only for dinner, but squirrels and rabbits were small targets), it was fair to say his skills smoked the rest of these kids’. He saw the gym teacher’s eyes pop open wide as he hit very close to the center of the target with his first shot, and he interrupted her impressed exclamation with a quick insistence that he just got lucky. He let off another arrow immediately, deliberately completely missing the target, but this time the teacher marveled over how quickly he’d notched the second arrow into place. He dropped the bow and ran to the end of the line.
Still, all in all, it had been a most successful day, he thought as he let himself into their little sublet with a bag of groceries he picked up on the way home from school. He’d checked out a couple of books from the library, including a cookbook for kids. He eagerly opened it to the recipe he’d gotten the ingredients for and spent a blissfully silent evening cooking, eating real food, and then reading, none of the lame t.v. Dean was always watching blaring in the background, no Dad obsessively researching a hunt.
The second day went well, too. He managed to impress his teacher not once but twice, earning some of that coveted praised, which, truly, wasn’t too hard, he thought, given the caliber of his fellow students, but it still felt good. He fumbled the ball during touch football, and he wasn’t even faking that, so maybe his teacher and peers would decide yesterday’s sudden show of extreme skill was an anomaly.
He was smiling, enjoying the sunny spring day, as he walked home that afternoon, swinging his backpack. He’d gotten another couple of books from the library, and was looking forward to another excellent evening. Everything was finally going right. He wished Dad and Dean were always gone like this.
“Aww, look at his little backpack.”
Sam looked over. Some high-school kids in a convertible had slowed down on this residential street just for the purpose of making fun of him. Real mature. Sam rolled his eyes and looked away, feeling more pleased than annoyed. If Dean were here, he’d have destroyed them. This seemed like a normal thing for an elementary-schooler to have to contend with, and he wasn’t intimidated. He kept walking.
“Hey, little boy, are you scared without your mommy?”
Okay, he was getting a little annoyed now. This was the best insult these people could manage? “I dunno,” he said, “are you too scared to pick on another high schooler? You look an idiot.”
“You look like an idiot, dumb elementary-schooler,” was their brilliant retort.
Sam couldn’t help it; he laughed.
The main guy looked like he might be getting pissed enough to stop the car, get out, and pummel Sam. Sam got ready, but unless this guy was way better at fighting than talking, he would be no trouble for Sam. Only when Sam caught sight of other elementary-schoolers walking home not far behind him closely watching the exchange did he get nervous--if he flattened a high-schooler, or more than one, he’d definitely look like a freak. He quickly cased the area. He could just run away, then, if need be, and hide in somebody’s yard.
Maybe the guy saw it in Sam’s face, or maybe he finally realized there could be no glory in pummeling a little kid; he tried to laugh it off and sped away. Sam shook his head. He caught the eye of one of the kids who’d been watching. She was still staring, wide-eyed. Sam laughed lightly. “I got lucky!” he tried, but the kids only stared.
Well, that didn’t go so good. He hurried to his apartment and let himself in. Not ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Sam opened it wonderingly. He’d fantasized a few times that his teacher might be so impressed with him as a student that she would come over to sing his praises to his dad, and they would end up talking, or maybe some kid from his class might think he was cool and want to hang out, because the only bad thing about Dad and Dean being gone was that he was getting lonely.
It was not his teacher, or another student. It was a neighbor in their apartment complex, who peered around inside the apartment as soon as Sam opened the door. Sam pulled the door a little more closed. “Are your folks here?” he asked.
“Dad’s at work,” Sam lied automatically.
“Really?” the guy said nicely. Sam knew how irritable he must look and regretted it. There were all kinds of kids out there that his good intentions could benefit; Sam just happened not to be one of them. “Because I never saw anyone but you come in yesterday.”
“Yeah, he’s on a business trip,” Sam insisted quickly, “but he’ll be back soon.”
“But ... how old are you?”
“Eleven,” Sam mumbled reluctantly, knowing this was one thing he couldn’t lie about. He was small for eleven. “I begged him to let me stay home alone this time!” he said. This was actually true. “And he let me, since it’s only a couple of days. I’m old enough!” Boy was he. If Dad hadn’t been paranoid about monsters coming to get revenge for their companions being exterminated by hunters, he’d have taken Dean with him since Sam was eight.
Sam read his thoughts as they passed across the guy’s face: He did not think Sam was old enough, but though Sam could tell he thought about calling social services, he seemed to realize that would be extreme, and far more traumatic for Sam than having to make his own dinner for a little while. “Dad’s a really good dad!” Sam blustered, hoping to cement the idea that calling social services would be a bad one. “He trusts me! Because I’m really mature. I get great grades.” When I’m actually in a school long enough to earn them, Sam added to himself.
“Well ... okay,” the guy said reluctantly. “I live right over there. If you need anything, just come knock on the door. Okay?”
Sam nodded frantically and moved to close the door.
“Because your dad really shouldn’t be leaving a kid so young alone overnight.”
“It’s fine! I like it. I like being alone.”
“When he does get back, would you have him come over and talk to me?”
Sam stared at him, horrified. Oh, no. Here it came.
“Because if your dad doesn’t know he shouldn’t be--”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on me?!” Sam shouted, and slammed the door, running into Dad’s bedroom, shaking. This was scarier than any monster. He picked up the phone and dialed the number for Dad’s pager, waiting anxiously by the phone for Dad to call him back, but he didn’t call. That’s right--they were deep in the wilderness.
Sam dialed the voicemail number and left a message explaining what had happened. “I don’t know how he knew; I guess he’s been watching the door. I told him it would only be a couple of days, so ... I don’t know if you’ve killed it yet, but I’m afraid he might make a call if you don’t get home soon. And ... he says he wants you to talk to him when you get back. I’m sorry, Dad. It’s just that there’s only the one door, facing that whole other row of apartments. I tried to be as discreet as I could, but I guess he’s been staring out his window all day, some kind of Rear Window thing or something; I dunno. Sorry. I’m sorry. If you get this, please tell me what to do.”
He scuttled out the door the next morning, but unless he tried to leave while it was still dark, there was no way to prevent that neighbor from seeing him.
On the way to school, those other kids who walked the same route stared at him and talked about him in whispers. When he tried to give one a friendly greeting, he hurried past without a word and glanced back obviously at Sam before whispering in another kid’s ear, and then that kid also looked back.
At school, his teacher marveled aloud at his test score, bragging about it to the rest of the class as she set his paper on his desk. He’d set the curve. Dirty looks now from his fellow students.
In gym, practicing archery again, he let it rip, three arrows in the center of the target, one right after another, holding his head high as the gym teacher exclaimed over it and his fellow students openly mocked him.
On the way home, those high-schoolers shouted something at him again, and he shouted back about how they were too scared of a little kid to even slow down to say it this time. He didn’t bother to turn to see how the other kids walking home would react.
Closer to home, he saw what he was pretty sure were signs of a werewolf in the area.
Letting himself in the front door, that neighbor was watching him out the window, phone to his ear. Sam went to the bedroom and started to pack. Trouble. It wasn’t Dad and Dean. It was him.
Notes:
-The scene with the high schoolers in the convertible comes directly from something that happened to me when I was a year older than Sam here. It was a few high-school girls in a convertible, who evidently thought the perfect way to cap off their enjoyment of having a convertible and the top down on a beautiful day would be to slow down and harass a middle-schooler. I wasn't usually very good at defending myself, but I made fun of them, pretty much destroying their attempt at ridicule. As in the fic, they threatened to get out and pummel me, I told them to go ahead, and after thinking it over, they sped away instead. A rare social victory for me!
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,800
Genre: gen, angst, hurt no comfort, wee!chesters, wee!chesters fending for themselves, school, bullies, outcast
Characters: Sam, OCs
Summary: When 11-year-old Sam gets to stay home alone while Dad and Dean are on a hunt, he's thrilled to get to finally live like a normal kid, staying out of the trouble that always seems to come with being a Winchester, but things never work out as planned.
Finally! As Sam watched the Impala drive off, leaving him at his new school, Sam grinned to himself. Now that Dean went with Dad on the hunt instead of sticking around to babysit Sam, Sam could finally be a normal kid, a good kid. Whenever Dad and Dean were around, whenever that Winchester-y vibe was concentrated all in one place, trouble was always sure soon to follow.
Going in the front door of his elementary-school building, Sam mused about other things it could be. Maybe it was that Dean loved trouble and excelled at creating it wherever he went. Even though they were always in different schools now, news seemed to trickle down among teachers from the high school that Sam was his little brother and to expect similar behavior. It could even be that the monsters they hunted created that vibe, but this time, the monster was half a day’s hike away in the woods, so even if it was that, it wouldn’t affect Sam.
Sam sat down proudly at his desk and took out his books. Before his teachers started giving him That Look, sometimes he managed to be the teacher’s pet. To get praised for being a good student, for being dutiful about normal things, for being diligent and insightful and scholarly ... he craved it. He tried to look bright and sunny and normal when the teacher came in the room.
The whole day went great. He forgot himself in gym for a moment and was far too skilled at archery, which these other students were trying for the first time, but considering Sam had more than once used the bow-hunting skills Dad had forced upon them to kill a moving creature (usually only for dinner, but squirrels and rabbits were small targets), it was fair to say his skills smoked the rest of these kids’. He saw the gym teacher’s eyes pop open wide as he hit very close to the center of the target with his first shot, and he interrupted her impressed exclamation with a quick insistence that he just got lucky. He let off another arrow immediately, deliberately completely missing the target, but this time the teacher marveled over how quickly he’d notched the second arrow into place. He dropped the bow and ran to the end of the line.
Still, all in all, it had been a most successful day, he thought as he let himself into their little sublet with a bag of groceries he picked up on the way home from school. He’d checked out a couple of books from the library, including a cookbook for kids. He eagerly opened it to the recipe he’d gotten the ingredients for and spent a blissfully silent evening cooking, eating real food, and then reading, none of the lame t.v. Dean was always watching blaring in the background, no Dad obsessively researching a hunt.
The second day went well, too. He managed to impress his teacher not once but twice, earning some of that coveted praised, which, truly, wasn’t too hard, he thought, given the caliber of his fellow students, but it still felt good. He fumbled the ball during touch football, and he wasn’t even faking that, so maybe his teacher and peers would decide yesterday’s sudden show of extreme skill was an anomaly.
He was smiling, enjoying the sunny spring day, as he walked home that afternoon, swinging his backpack. He’d gotten another couple of books from the library, and was looking forward to another excellent evening. Everything was finally going right. He wished Dad and Dean were always gone like this.
“Aww, look at his little backpack.”
Sam looked over. Some high-school kids in a convertible had slowed down on this residential street just for the purpose of making fun of him. Real mature. Sam rolled his eyes and looked away, feeling more pleased than annoyed. If Dean were here, he’d have destroyed them. This seemed like a normal thing for an elementary-schooler to have to contend with, and he wasn’t intimidated. He kept walking.
“Hey, little boy, are you scared without your mommy?”
Okay, he was getting a little annoyed now. This was the best insult these people could manage? “I dunno,” he said, “are you too scared to pick on another high schooler? You look an idiot.”
“You look like an idiot, dumb elementary-schooler,” was their brilliant retort.
Sam couldn’t help it; he laughed.
The main guy looked like he might be getting pissed enough to stop the car, get out, and pummel Sam. Sam got ready, but unless this guy was way better at fighting than talking, he would be no trouble for Sam. Only when Sam caught sight of other elementary-schoolers walking home not far behind him closely watching the exchange did he get nervous--if he flattened a high-schooler, or more than one, he’d definitely look like a freak. He quickly cased the area. He could just run away, then, if need be, and hide in somebody’s yard.
Maybe the guy saw it in Sam’s face, or maybe he finally realized there could be no glory in pummeling a little kid; he tried to laugh it off and sped away. Sam shook his head. He caught the eye of one of the kids who’d been watching. She was still staring, wide-eyed. Sam laughed lightly. “I got lucky!” he tried, but the kids only stared.
Well, that didn’t go so good. He hurried to his apartment and let himself in. Not ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Sam opened it wonderingly. He’d fantasized a few times that his teacher might be so impressed with him as a student that she would come over to sing his praises to his dad, and they would end up talking, or maybe some kid from his class might think he was cool and want to hang out, because the only bad thing about Dad and Dean being gone was that he was getting lonely.
It was not his teacher, or another student. It was a neighbor in their apartment complex, who peered around inside the apartment as soon as Sam opened the door. Sam pulled the door a little more closed. “Are your folks here?” he asked.
“Dad’s at work,” Sam lied automatically.
“Really?” the guy said nicely. Sam knew how irritable he must look and regretted it. There were all kinds of kids out there that his good intentions could benefit; Sam just happened not to be one of them. “Because I never saw anyone but you come in yesterday.”
“Yeah, he’s on a business trip,” Sam insisted quickly, “but he’ll be back soon.”
“But ... how old are you?”
“Eleven,” Sam mumbled reluctantly, knowing this was one thing he couldn’t lie about. He was small for eleven. “I begged him to let me stay home alone this time!” he said. This was actually true. “And he let me, since it’s only a couple of days. I’m old enough!” Boy was he. If Dad hadn’t been paranoid about monsters coming to get revenge for their companions being exterminated by hunters, he’d have taken Dean with him since Sam was eight.
Sam read his thoughts as they passed across the guy’s face: He did not think Sam was old enough, but though Sam could tell he thought about calling social services, he seemed to realize that would be extreme, and far more traumatic for Sam than having to make his own dinner for a little while. “Dad’s a really good dad!” Sam blustered, hoping to cement the idea that calling social services would be a bad one. “He trusts me! Because I’m really mature. I get great grades.” When I’m actually in a school long enough to earn them, Sam added to himself.
“Well ... okay,” the guy said reluctantly. “I live right over there. If you need anything, just come knock on the door. Okay?”
Sam nodded frantically and moved to close the door.
“Because your dad really shouldn’t be leaving a kid so young alone overnight.”
“It’s fine! I like it. I like being alone.”
“When he does get back, would you have him come over and talk to me?”
Sam stared at him, horrified. Oh, no. Here it came.
“Because if your dad doesn’t know he shouldn’t be--”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on me?!” Sam shouted, and slammed the door, running into Dad’s bedroom, shaking. This was scarier than any monster. He picked up the phone and dialed the number for Dad’s pager, waiting anxiously by the phone for Dad to call him back, but he didn’t call. That’s right--they were deep in the wilderness.
Sam dialed the voicemail number and left a message explaining what had happened. “I don’t know how he knew; I guess he’s been watching the door. I told him it would only be a couple of days, so ... I don’t know if you’ve killed it yet, but I’m afraid he might make a call if you don’t get home soon. And ... he says he wants you to talk to him when you get back. I’m sorry, Dad. It’s just that there’s only the one door, facing that whole other row of apartments. I tried to be as discreet as I could, but I guess he’s been staring out his window all day, some kind of Rear Window thing or something; I dunno. Sorry. I’m sorry. If you get this, please tell me what to do.”
He scuttled out the door the next morning, but unless he tried to leave while it was still dark, there was no way to prevent that neighbor from seeing him.
On the way to school, those other kids who walked the same route stared at him and talked about him in whispers. When he tried to give one a friendly greeting, he hurried past without a word and glanced back obviously at Sam before whispering in another kid’s ear, and then that kid also looked back.
At school, his teacher marveled aloud at his test score, bragging about it to the rest of the class as she set his paper on his desk. He’d set the curve. Dirty looks now from his fellow students.
In gym, practicing archery again, he let it rip, three arrows in the center of the target, one right after another, holding his head high as the gym teacher exclaimed over it and his fellow students openly mocked him.
On the way home, those high-schoolers shouted something at him again, and he shouted back about how they were too scared of a little kid to even slow down to say it this time. He didn’t bother to turn to see how the other kids walking home would react.
Closer to home, he saw what he was pretty sure were signs of a werewolf in the area.
Letting himself in the front door, that neighbor was watching him out the window, phone to his ear. Sam went to the bedroom and started to pack. Trouble. It wasn’t Dad and Dean. It was him.
Notes:
-The scene with the high schoolers in the convertible comes directly from something that happened to me when I was a year older than Sam here. It was a few high-school girls in a convertible, who evidently thought the perfect way to cap off their enjoyment of having a convertible and the top down on a beautiful day would be to slow down and harass a middle-schooler. I wasn't usually very good at defending myself, but I made fun of them, pretty much destroying their attempt at ridicule. As in the fic, they threatened to get out and pummel me, I told them to go ahead, and after thinking it over, they sped away instead. A rare social victory for me!