[spn_adambang fic]: Every Boy Should HaveTwo Things - PG-13 - 1/2
A/N: This was written for spn_adambang. If you've known me long (or even not so long), you probably know I've written a lot of fics about Adam Milligan, but for some reason, I really struggled with this one. I even feared I wouldn't finish it. Luckily, I had a lot of support to help me cross the finish line. My artist, rattyjol, was incredibly patient with me; _bluebells and synnerxx were the best co-mods you could imagine; and, last but not least, nights_fang not only prompted my initial concept, she beta'd this for me, too. I love them all and hope they enjoy this. Everyone else, too. ♥
Title: Every Boy Should Have Two Things (AO3)
Rating: PG-13
Author: ladyknightanka
Artist: rattyjol
Beta: nights_fang
Genre: AU, gen, kidfic, family
Warnings: Mild language, some violence, vague spoilers for 5.16: Dark Side of the Moon and 4.19: Jump the Shark.
Word Count: ~15k
Notes: This fic is an AU of Sam's anecdote in Dark Side of the Moon, about running away to Six Flags as a kid. Instead of making it there, Sam ends up at the Milligans'.
Art: Click the pretty here!
Summary: In retrospect, it's not really Six Flags, with its tacky rides, bad food and creepy mascots, that thirteen year old Sam wants so badly, enough to run away. It's normalcy, an apple-pie life. When he's deterred in Windom, Minnesota, and put into the custody of emergency room nurse Kate Milligan, he gets not only that, but a chance to experience having a mother and being a big brother to Kate's seven year old son, Adam.
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Every Boy Should Have Two Things
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“Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother willing to let him have one,” ~Anonymous.
Sam wakes less than two seconds before Herb the bus driver's meaty hand lands on his shoulder. He and the corpulent man stare at one another a moment, wide-eyed, before Herb clears his throat and says, “Ya gotta get off now, kid.”
Sam glances out the foggy window he'd thus been dozing against. Other patrons from the tour bus have already congregated outside and are chatting with their respective companions.
“We're not at Six Flags yet,” Sam says, which earns him a deadpan look.
“Pit-stopping for grub,” Herb explains. “We're in Windom, Minnesota right now. I reckon Six Flags ain't for another office day yet.” He narrows his beady eyes at Sam. “Sure is weird, a kid like you travelin' so far all alone. Wouldn't it've been brighter to catch a plane from General Mitchell International?”
Sam scowls. “I already told you, I'm thirteen, not a kid, and my dad gave me permission. I'm meeting Mom at the park.” The lie comes easy now, even 'mom'. He's used it twice and stumbled only the first time.
“Whatever you say, champ,” Herb says with a shrug. “Still gotta get out.”
“Fine,” Sam replies. When Herb retreats to the front of the bus, he lets out a sigh of relief and stands on his tiptoes to grab his bag off the storage area above his seat.
Soon, if Dean's premonitions prove correct and Sam continues, as his brother eloquently put it, “Growing like a bladder twelve hours without a piss,” Sam won't need to stretch so far anymore; whatever he wants will be within reach.
Herb beckons impatiently from across the yellow 'do not pass' line near his steering wheel, and Sam chooses to focus on the sweat stains under the arms of his uniform - not Dean, who had been asleep when Sam snuck out.
He slips the strap of his bag onto his shoulder, shuffles off the bus and squints up at the golden arches of a McDonald's. It's not the kind of place he usually eats at, though no more classy than those Mom-and-Pop diners, either, but there's a gas station up from, a port-a-potty out back, and food inside, a-okay for him and the rest of the bus-lagged tour group.
Sam is the only one who isn't with a family member or ten. While John's counterfeit credit card and forged signature on the fake form Sam had typed up at Milwaukee's public library stave off most awkward questions, Sam's unsurprised when one of the mothers among the group, Mrs. Stone, breaks away from her gaggle of middle-aged friends to ask him, “Do you have money, hon? I was just about to go inside and order for Alan and Jake. I could pick you up something, too?”
She has a sweet, round face, a kind smile and brown eyes that blend with her coffee-cream-and-sugar skin-tone. One of her sons has also collected all one-hundred-and-fifty Pokemon cards, so Sam knows they're a good bunch. He beams at her, but politely declines. “No, thank you, ma'am. I'm fine.”
She nods and allows him to duck around her, into the McDonald's. There isn't a very long line. Most of their group has already overtaken what booths are available, so Sam resigns himself to getting a Big Mac and a drink, then exits to the half empty parking-lot again. It has no benches, but the McDonald's is enclosed by cement-block dividers, and they're as good a place as any to sit down.
Sam sets his bag aside and takes a sip of his Sprite. The paper packet of his burger is slightly soggy, but the smell it emits makes his mouth water, regardless. He peels the yellow wrapping halfway back and is about to take his first bite, when padded footsteps suddenly ring out behind him.
The hairs on the nape of his neck rise and his body unwinds to do the same. He whips around on his heel so fast that his sneaker almost makes contact with his soda, but instead of the monster he expects - demon, poltergeist, something, because this can't be as easy as it is - a dog sits on its haunches behind him, ears floppy as Sam's hair, tongue lolling with drool.
“S-Sam, are you okay?” Mrs. Stone inquires from afar.
Sam meets her nervous gaze and manages a soft laugh. “Everything's fine, ma'am. It's just a dog.” The dog in question woofs to emphasize his affirmation and Sam frowns at it. “You shouldn't've scared the nice lady,” he tells it sternly.
It whimpers and blinks big, sad brown eyes at him. Sam sighs and reclaims his seat, the dog now beside him. Its tawny fur is splattered with mud and it wears no identifying collar; it must be a stray, Sam thinks, though he finds it strange, how far it is from the main town.
“You must've followed the smell of food here, huh?” Sam tears a hefty chunk of his burger off. In a flash, the dog eats it out of his palm, and he has his answer. “No wonder you're hungry,” he says with a gentle smile. “You look like nothing but fur and bones. That's what I'll call you - Bones.”
He receives another woof for his efforts and rewards Bones with more food. It doesn't take them long to decimate their shared meal and takes even less time for the bus driver to call the whole group back. Sam stands with his bag, tosses his leftovers into a nearby bin, and starts for the bus. Bones follows.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Herb exclaims, once they draw near. “You can't bring the mutt with you, kid. It'll leave hair and crap all over my seats.”
Sam resists the urge to glare and instead mimes Bones's begging face from earlier. It always works wonders on Dean. “Aw, c'mon, dude, he won't do anything,” he promises. “It's only a few more hours. I'll make sure he doesn't make a mess.”
Herb flares his broad shoulders back and scowls. The sun's gleam behind him blurs his features, and the pose is so reminiscent of John that Sam inhales sharply. John saying 'no', depriving Sam of this trip that every other eighth grader but Sam was allowed to attend, that he had promised Sam could have, is what spurred Sam to run away in the first place. He can't let his father hold him back anymore.
Sam's lips set into a stubborn sneer to match Herb's - or John's, on his worst day - and other patrons of the bus pause to watch the showdown. Bones paws at his nose like he wants to hide. Mrs. Stone looks as if she desires the same thing.
“Sam, please,” she says, the fingers of both her hands interlinked in a pseudo-prayer. “Why don't you just come in? It'll get late soon, honey, and I'm sure the dog has someone to miss it...”
“No, he doesn't,” Sam replies, still firm. Bones may not be pedigree, but neither is Sam, and both of them deserve someone to notice if they're gone. Sam has Dean; he doesn't know what Bones has. “If Bones can't go, I won't, either.”
“Just let the dog on,” someone else calls out, but the bus driver holds out a hand, and Mrs. Stone's hopeful expression crumples.
“He won't go without the dog?” Herb spits. “Then he ain't going at all. Not on my charter. Shouldn't have let the ungrateful brat on, anyway. Have fun wrestling public transit all the way to the park.”
He storms inside his prone bus and, after a tense moment, everyone else follows. Except Mrs. Stone. “You sure you won't come?” she asks, an imploring note to the inquiry.
Sam shakes his head, but dredges up a dimpled smile. “Sorry, ma'am, but...thank you. Your kids are waiting.”
He watches as she reluctantly nods and enters the bus. It's gone within minutes. Bones stares after it with a forlorn whimper, but butts his head against Sam's knuckles when Sam pets him.
“'S okay, boy,” Sam mumbles. “Sometimes, two's all you need. Grownups suck, anyway. We'll be okay.”
A look up at the graying sky above dims his determination a bit. Mrs. Stone doesn't need to be a psychic to be right. Moisture thickens the air, a omen for rain. Sam pulls the large jacket he borrowed from Dean tighter around himself, and heads back into the McDonald's, thankfully open twenty four hours a day.
“Stay,” he says to Bones, outside the door. The dog cocks his head and barks, but doesn't move, so Sam wonders again whether he's been house-trained, though it hardly matters anymore.
There are only two employees inside the McDonald's: an older man who's probably the manager and a gum-popping girl about Dean's age, who has her head cradled in one palm, bopping to some unknown beat. Sam stops across the counter in front of her. He knows for a fact that there are just as many female monsters as male, but on appearance alone, she with her dyed-pink hair in pigtails seems less menacing. And besides, there's a Taurus PT99 tucked into his waistband, courtesy of Dean, and a sheathed bowie knife strapped against one of his socked ankles. He's ready.
The girl's eyes roll up to meet his when he asks, “Do you live in the town nearby...Windom?”
Her ID reads hello, my name is Peggy Barton, he mentally notes. She squints at him from behind bejeweled violet frames. “Why?”
Sam fidgets from foot to foot, brushes hair from his eyes, and tries to appear sheepish. “I, uh, my bus left me. I was hoping to hitch a ride to Windom's bus station?”
Peggy frowns at him for so long that he fears he'll have to either ask her manager or walk, but then she rolls her eyes again and curtly nods 'yes'. “Sure, but keep your hands to yourself, pipsqueak,” she says. “We're going straight to the bus stop.”
“Perfect,” Sam says with a grin. He's not Dean, after all; Peggy's virtue is safe with him.
Peggy flicks her wrist in the direction of an empty booth across the counter. “I get off in twenty minutes. Can you wait?”
“I'd rather, er, sit outside, if that's okay?” Sam replies. He thumbs back toward the sole exit, Bones visible through the glass. “I wanna keep my dog company.”
“Whatever floats your boat.” Peggy shrugs and tugs a few napkins out from a proximate dispenser to rub the counter down with.
Sam returns to Bones, who nuzzles up against him. Carding his fingers through the dog's grimy fur, Sam leans into his solid warmth. The roof over the entrance keeps them dry, but delicate drops somehow blow in, anyway. There's a rolled up wrapper near one of the two trashcans that stand, sentinel-like, in front of the McDonald's. Sam considers it briefly, then picks it up.
“Fetch boy,” he says, tossing it as far as he can. It starts to arc into a landing about halfway across the empty lot. Bones's dark eyes gleam. He wriggles his rump in preparation, tail manic atop it, and lunges after his prey.
They do this for almost all of the next half hour, till Sam's arm is sore, the makeshift ball is a crumbling mess, and Peggy finishes up. She stands behind him on the top step and stares for a couple of seconds, before dodging around him to one of the few cars still parked in the lot: a lime-green VW Bug Dean would consider an auto-mechanical travesty.
“C'mon, kid,” she calls over her shoulder. Sam and Bones trail her and she eyes the dog. “It's only, like, a fifteen minute drive. I hope you can keep Fido in check.”
“Bones is a good dog,” Sam replies quickly, recalling the bus driver's adverse reaction. Bones responds by sitting still on his haunches and heaving heavy breaths. Sam pets him. “I'll make sure he doesn't damage anything.”
“All right,” Peggy says, and climbs into the driver's seat. Sam tries the right-hand, backseat door and finds it unlocked. He crawls in as far as he can go, till he's behind the front, passenger-side seat, so Bones can hop in beside him. Just before wheeling off, Peggy rolls her window down and shouts, “See ya, Frank,” presumably to her boss, whom Sam catches waving in the rear-view. Then the drive to Windom commences.
They don't talk for all of five minutes, aside from Sam's gently murmured mantra, “Good boy.”
Soon, however, Peggy's brown eyes latch onto the rear-view mirror, and she says, “I've gotta brother 'bout your age.”
Sam shrugs. “And I have one yours.”
“Oh, cool.” She squints at the road ahead, stopping at appropriate lights and signs. Sam's not used to such careful driving, but when Peggy says, “My mom'd never let Tyler take the bus so far,” he realizes that there are a lot of differences between the Winchesters and Bartons.
Peggy keeps looking away from the wet street, toward him, and he knows her mom's not the only one; she probably wouldn't let her little brother travel alone, either. She'd worry about Tyler and is worried about Sam. A voice in Sam's head tells him Dean's worried, too, that Dean's tearing Milwaukee apart looking for him, getting himself into trouble along the way, but those thoughts only leech the smile from Sam's face. He can't quite manage another one to put Peggy at ease.
“Dean - that's my brother - didn't want me to take the bus so far by myself, either. Neither did Dad. Six Flags is forever away from home. 'Cept I really wanted to go.” Sam speaks more to camouflage his frown than anything. The lie comes bitter as dead man's blood to his lips. As if any of the places they stop in for their lifelong road-trip are home.
“So they let you?” Peggy inquires. Her incredulity cuts through his ire and Sam hesitantly nods.
Outside, buildings begin to pop up like bindweed - stores, offices and little cookie-cutter houses. There's not a lot of graffiti or litter, but some overgrown lawns. Windom will look nicer, more like the suburb it is, during the day, Sam thinks. As it is, it's a ghost town, hopefully not in the literal sense.
The bus station isn't too far into Windom. It's huge, blue and orange transit sign appears luminous even at night, but no one seems around to tend to it. Although Peggy slows near one of the bus stops that line the curb prior the station, she keeps the engine running. “You sure you wanna be here, kid? I don't know if there are still buses running so late. Windom's not really a night-owl's perch.”
“What else can I do?” Sam asks, fingers bunched into the material of his jeans. Bones's head hovers above his knee.
Peggy smiles, all glittery black lip-gloss, and says, “Come home with me and call your dad - or maybe that brother of yours. You can stay the night, play Tekken with Tyler. Mom won't mind, and I'm sure your family'd be relieved.”
Sam wants to say something pithy and Dean-like in response - “Come home with you? Why don'tcha buy me dinner first?” - but all that escapes his lips is a stammered, “I-I can't.” He fists his hands so tightly that his nails dig in and hurt.
Bones croons at him. Peggy looks like she wants to do the same, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, her mouth set into a grimace. “Look, kid, you did something stupid. Taking a bus from Windom to Six Flags? I've never been. It's way too far, 'specially if you live somewhere close by.” She meets Sam's gaze in the rear-view. “I get wanting to go, though, and I bet your dad'll understand, too. Everybody's thirteen sometime.”
“You don't know my dad,” Sam says, then opens the door closest to his vicinity and jumps out, Bones at his side. “Thanks, but you shouldn't waste anymore gas on me, okay? I'll be fine.”
Peggy doesn't answer at once, instead scrutinizing him for a few moments more. Sam knows he must look the picture of pitiful, his hanging knapsack practically taller than him, swinging like a guillotine above his ankle, Dean's borrowed jacket a large, shapeless bag on his smaller form, his hair plastered to his forehead thanks to a faint drizzle of rain.
“What's your name?” Peggy finally asks.
“Sam,” he replies.
She bites her bottom lip, but removes her foot from the Bug's brakes and quickly hurdles around a streetlamp. Sam watches her go, something heavy curled in his rib-cage that he almost hopes is a respiratory infection of some sort.
Once Peggy is out of sight, Sam hurries inside the glass enclosure of an adjacent bus stop. With one hand, he both beckons Bones in and grabs a newspaper from the stack parallel a side exit. He takes one from the middle so it isn't as wet, and lines pages out on the sole bench inside, long enough for him to stretch out on, though he has to repeat the process on the ground for Bones. He doesn't want his dog to sleep in a puddle, either.
Sam sprawls out on his improvised bed and gives Bones's head one last stroke. “G'night, boy.”
-
-
The entrance to the bus stop has no door. Wind blows through it perpetually.
Sam shivers, but keeps his eyes shut, practically to the point of pain. It's hardly thirty minutes later that flashing lights force him to unscrew his eyelids. He opens them to find a police car parked along the chalked-off area for buses. A bald man in uniform, wearing mirrored black shades, steps out of the errant vehicle.
Even as Sam sighs and says, “Peggy sent you, huh?” one of his hands drops to his waist, to his gun, just in case.
“I'm Officer Joe Barton,” the man replies, “Peggy's uncle. Her mom called and said she'd encountered a suspected runaway.”
Sam scowls. “Look, Officer, Peggy's nice and all, but she's wrong. I'm no runaway.”
“She said you told her your daddy didn't want you going on your own.” Officer Barton quirks an eyebrow.
“No, he didn't, but he still signed a waiver for that charter to take me,” Sam says, his free hand roving to the zipper on his bag, the other still inches away from his weapon. “How was I 'sposed to know the jerk bus driver would leave me stranded?”
Officer Barton angles both his arms up in a passive 'don't shoot' gesture and says, “Look, we'll clear everything up down at the station. You can show me your slip, I'll call your daddy-”
“No!” Sam interjects. He thinks Barton's eyes must round beneath his sunglasses, but it's hard to tell. Then again, as Dean always says, who wears sunglasses at night, anyway? Not like there's a sun around to shield your eyes from. All it does it make you look like a douche. Cheeks red, Sam mumbles, “Dad'll make me go home. I wanna go to Six Flags - I have to.”
If he goes back now, Dean and John will both keep a stricter watch on him. He knows it's because they care, because they want him to be safe from all the monsters that follow them around like rats do the Pied Piper, but if he goes back now, he'll never get to make a journey like this again and certainly won't ever find normal. That's worth missing his family for a little while longer.
Bones's head shoots up, and his ears prick at the note of distress in Sam's tone, despite Sam assuming he'd been asleep. The golden retriever’s lips peel back to bare his sharp teeth at Barton, a low growl husky in his throat. Barton takes a step back and his hand roves to his own utility belt, ready to grab something to defend himself with.
“Let's all just calm down,” he says.
Sam's fingers descend into the soft fur where Bones should have a collar, at the nape of the dog's neck. “Not if you even think about hurting my dog,” he grits out, then cranes his chin higher.
He wants to maintain his staring contest with Barton, wants to win it, but a big white van turns onto their street and slowly creeps toward them. Both Sam and Barton shoot it wary glances. It looks like the kind of car someone would use to pick up kids - or, with that much space, stock up on weapons and hunt in it - but the windows are not tinted, and Sam catches sight of a pretty blonde woman at its wheel, when it pulls up beside Barton's patrol car.
She rolls down her window and inquires, “Joe, that you?”
Barton's forehead scrunches. Sam thinks he's squinting behind his glasses. “Kate? Yeah, it's me. You heading home from your shift?”
“I am.” The woman - Kate, Barton had called her - hesitates, eyes on Sam. He can't tell if they're brown, blue or green in the distance. “Is everything all right? I saw you with the kid and...are you hurt, sweetie?”
She directs the last question to Sam, who shakes his head and replies, “No, ma'am. Just waiting for a bus outta town.”
This earns him another glare from Barton. “Look, kid, I ain't gonna let you stay out here all night. The next bus doesn't show up for-”
“I don't care,” Sam exclaims, and Bones growls, making his presence known once more.
Kate looks between the three of them, then murmurs, “You're a runaway.”
“...No, ma'am,” Sam says again, but she must notice the pause, because she smiles. It's not really a happy expression, more a tired crook of her mouth to the right, and something like guilt claws at Sam's stomach. She's pretty in a way that niggles in his brain, like a memory. She shouldn't look so worn.
She only confirms the wayward thought when she purses her lips in a no-nonsense way and tells Barton, “What can you do, anyway? Take him down to the station and let him sleep in a cell till his mother picks him up?”
“What are you saying?” Barton inquires. He finally removes his obnoxious sunglasses to lock eyes with Kate and better absorb her meaning.
She shrugs. “You're tired, I'm tired, the kid's probably tired, too. If it's all the same, maybe he can come with me tonight, and you can check on him tomorrow, to straighten all this out when none of us are in danger of tripping over our own feet?
“You...sure?” Barton asks, upon processing this. “It's a lot for you to take on, Kate. Another kid and a dog when you've already got work and Adam and-”
“-A day off tomorrow,” Kate interrupts. She smirks at Barton like she's won a prize, but her smile and eyes soften when she surveys Sam's slack jaw. “Besides,” she continues softly, “I want to help because he reminds me of Adam. Ever seen another kid with a stubborn streak like that? He's got the same tantrum face and everything.”
“Guess so,” Barton relents.
“So it's settled.” Kate claps her hands over the steering wheel, then catches Sam's gaze. “That is, if-”
“Sam,” he whispers, though he's not really sure why. He'd have heckled Barton before giving him even that, if it was just them. It would have made Dean proud, at least, but harassing a pretty lady likely wouldn't. “My name is Sam Lennon.” He startles when Bones breaks out of his loose grasp and leaps to Kate's window-side, where he sits up on his back legs and wags his tail. Kate laughs and extends her fingers for Bones to sniff. Sam stares at the two of them, then mutters, “I guess...if Bones's okay with it, we can go with you.”
Kate beams at them both and retracts her hand from Bones's snout to unlock the door with a click. Sam steps around Barton to climb into the van's backseat, precariously slow though his fears have mostly been allayed by Bones's reaction to Kate. Animals are not as blind to the supernatural as humans.
“Christo,” Sam still says, as he shuts the door.
“Bless you,” Kate answers distractedly, before wiggling her fingers at Barton and taking the van out of 'park'. Sam marvels at how the irony flies over her head. Once they reach a traffic light and stop, Kate turns around in her seat to extend her hand to him, as if she thinks he's her equal. He entangles her fingers in his own and likes that they're warm, but not completely soft - a little calloused, even, how he wouldn't typically imagine a woman's skin to be. She's wearing sea-foam scrubs that set off her hazel eyes, and wind from the open window beside her blows her hair into his face. Her shampoo smells pleasant, some sort of flower blend. “Call me Kate, if you like?”
“Um, okay,” Sam says, then flicks his head toward the fogged-up window nearest him. Droplets of water spritz off and hit it; lines drip down. Sam begins to finger-paint on the moist surface.
Kate must realize that it's an excuse not to converse, because she riffles the radio on and starts to hum along to a Billy Joel song. Bones accentuates the chorus with delighted barks and howls. Those are the only sounds Sam hears for the next couple of miles.
The houses they pass look more and more run-down in time, white-washed more than optic white, some shillings on their roofs sheared away by nature. Kate stops in front of one of these and rounds into its driveway. She looks back over her shoulder and notices that Sam's forehead is crinkled analytically.
Her smile is easy as she says, “I know it's not the Taj Mahal, but I like it. It's home.”
“I like it, too,” Sam hurriedly affirms. It's nicer than most places he's stayed in, anyway, and certainly more so than the dilapidated Milwaukee motel he'd prowled out of - better than anywhere John prefers, honestly, where they wouldn't even mind if you left a body behind.
Kate unlocks the van's doors, and Sam barrels out after Bones, taking in the toys in the yard: little Tonka trucks, a tricycle, scattered action figures and battered stuffed animals. “You're a mom?” he asks Kate, and when she nods, feels suddenly warmer in the chilled rain.
“I've got a little boy, Adam,” Kate says. Her smile etches deeper and her eyes twinkle like the stars above. She moves to the entrance, the number four-nineteen lopsided on it, and fiddles with her keys. “You'll like him, I think. Adam's got quite the fan-club 'round here.”
“Probably,” Sam agrees, hushed, kicking up dust with the toe of one sneaker. “'M not around kids all that much.” Or nice houses owned by nice ladies, he doesn't add aloud.
Kate opens the door with a little push, but doesn't immediately enter. Rather, she turns around and sets both her hands on Sam's shoulders. More warmth seeps through her touch. “You'll do great,” she says, lips curled upwards on either end, pink and free of gloss, unlike the girls Sam's used to, Dean's girls, who can't be too much younger than Kate, but may as well be the Mona Lisa, for all their bombastic face-paint.
Dean is what Uncle Bobby calls a horn-dog. He'd probably like Kate, too - would definitely tell her so unashamedly, if he did - and Sam is abruptly relieved that his brother's not around. Kate releases him with a final squeeze and steps inside her house. Bones brushes past Sam's legs to do the same.
Sam glances over his left shoulder, at the midnight sky and the moon and stars that adorn it, then follows them into a slightly cluttered, homey foyer. It's swath with indigo-blue carpeting like the sky outside, a pale tan couch you'd never be able to get blood out of, and a fireplace with a bunch of picture-frames balanced on top of it.
“Kate, is that you?” a female voice calls, from a room beside a staircase.
“Yes, Kala, I'm home,” Kate replies, just as an elderly woman walks in. She has steel-gray hair in a tight bun, owlish glasses, and wrinkles around her smiling mouth and eyes. Kate turns to Sam and says, “This is Mrs. Kala Dutta, my neighbor. She watches Adam when I work. How was he?”
The latter question is directed toward Kala, who replies, “Oh, same as ever. A little angel...who sometimes pays too much mind to the devil on his shoulder.”
Kate laughs, one of her fair eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. “You spoil him, Kala, but thanks for helping out.”
“It's nothing,” the woman says. “I make up for not spoiling my grand-kids enough with Adam.”
“Speaking of your grand-kids, have fun in Minneapolis. You deserve some time with a family other than mine.” Kate winks, but when Kala's eyebrows furrow, she adds, “Don't worry about us, really. As you can see, I've got some guests for tomorrow-” She inclines her chin at Sam, who gives an awkward wave, “-so I'll definitely spend all the time I want with my little man. Wouldn't be fair if you couldn't, too, huh?”
“You're right, of course.” Kala comes forward and encircles Kate in a quick hug. Before retreating, she also waves at Sam and Bones. Sam watches her go.
“She's had a tough time since losing her husband,” Kate says, which jars Sam out of his observations and redirects his attention to her. She doesn't, however, speak anymore on the matter. “You wait here. I'll go see if I have anything in your size. Make yourself at home, hon.”
She lopes out of the room, up the stairs, but instead of taking a seat on her unblemished sofa and possibly wetting it - which an excited Bones does well enough on his own - Sam wanders closer to the fireplace. There are several pictures of the little boy Kate mentioned, Adam, but of Kate as well.
In one, she's even younger, barely older than Dean, who's seventeen now, with a bundled baby in her arms, grinning like she just won a marathon, although she's in what looks to be a diminutive hospital cot. The baby's tiny head sticks out from above his pale blue blankets, his hair fair as his mother's, his chubby cherub cheeks red and eyes a sleepy gray-blue.
Sam traces a fingertip along the rim of another frame. It's cool to the touch, but the picture is all warmth. The little boy inside grins widely, older now, a colorful cone-hat atop his flyaway blond hair, Kate at his side, her hand on his shoulder, and a birthday cake in front of him with a wax number five candle, in all shades of the rainbow. Footsteps pad into the room. Kate's back.
“You...really love him, huh?” Sam asks her.
There's a pause, then, “Of course. More than anything. I don't think any mom could say different.” He can hear the smile in her voice, without looking back.
“I dunno,” Sam says, rolling his shoulders back lightly. He pauses for a beat too long and hears Kate's sharp intake of breath, which finally prompts him to face her. “Uh, no. I know you're a nurse and everything, but I didn't mean it like that. The only way my mom ever hurt me was...by dying.”
Kate inhales again and crosses the distance between them, both hands braced on his shoulders once more. “Oh, honey, I'm so sorry,” she whispers.
“Oh no, I, uh, I never really knew her,” Sam says, unable to make eye contact. He glowers at his sneakers instead. “I was only maybe-” He reaches back to touch another of the picture-frames, this one between the other two. In it, Kate's son is hardly older than the first picture, but much younger than the second, “-this big when she died? I hardly felt like I ever had a mother, you know? It wasn't much of a loss.”
“Still...” Kate bites her bottom lip and pulls him into a hug before he can object. She's perhaps minutely shorter than him, so his head can fall into the crook of her shoulder easily, but he remains stiff for a few seconds, arms out behind her. Then, he squeezes back.
They stay intertwined until Bones woofs from the couch. Sam pulls away and carefully doesn't notice the surreptitious way Kate wipes one eye. He points at her armload: a neatly folded white button up shirt atop pants of the same color, with thin blue pinstripes vertically lining both articles of clothing. A white towel sits below them.
“These for me? I actually have stuff in my bag.” His ears heat at how he forgot to mention that, but Kate's cheeks pink in embarrassment, too.
“Oh, okay then.” She emits a self-deprecating laugh, and lifts the shirt by its collar with her thumb and forefinger. “This is a spare set of pajamas from the hospital, anyway. Don't suppose that's what all the kids are wearing now?”
“No,” Sam agrees, offering a wan smile. He thumbs over one shoulder and continues, “Can I just use your bathroom? I was on a bus for a while, so there weren't any showers...”
“Of course,” Kate says. She moves to set the pajamas down on the couch, next to Bones, and Sam hides a wince. No way Bones won't get the white cotton dirty. Kate doesn't seem to mind, though. She even plops down next to the dog and takes his head into her lap. “Take the stairs and the bathroom is the second door to your left, 'kay?”
“Got it,” Sam says, as she begins toweling Bones off, deaf to his exaggerated howls.
Sam takes the steps upstairs two by two, and listens there for a moment, but Bones's cries have dulled, thankfully. He's glad, because nice as she is, he's sure Kate doesn't want her son woken by their commotion. Adam's door is slightly cracked, with stickers and splashes of paint all over the wood, directly across from the bathroom.
Sam stares at it for a second, before entering his destination, where he flings his bag on top of the lidded toilet. The bathroom is small, but smells like floral air-freshener, has flower-patterned rugs and duckies printed on the shower curtain. It's so cute, so unlike any of the motel bathrooms Sam has been in, that he showers in a rush, changes into a t-shirt and wool pants from his bag, then retreats. Drying his hair with his towel only makes the generic baby shampoo smell filtrate into the air. Again, he's glad Dean's not around.
He slowly descends down the steps, back into the foyer, and finds Bones asleep on the couch, alone. Soft hums filter through the open kitchen door nearby and meet his ears. Kate's back is to him. She faces the kitchen counter and extracts a bowl of something from a microwave.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she says, turning around and setting the bowl on a small table with four chairs. “It's veggie curry with rice.
Sam squints at the contents of the bowl. “Oh, um, you didn't have to do that for me.”
“I didn't.” Kate flicks her wrist dismissively and grins. “Mrs. Dutta is an expert chef. I, on the other hand, burn water, so expect pizza tomorrow.”
“I like pizza,” Sam says with a laugh. He tries one spoonful of Mrs. Dutta's curry and moans. “This is good, though.”
“Thought you'd say so. Enjoy.” Kate starts to exit, but somehow senses that Sam might protest, and adds, “Don't worry, I had some already. I'm just gonna go get cleaned up, then put you down with Adam, if that's all right?”
“Kate, no...” Sam purses his lips and flashes her what Dean calls his 'bitchface'. “You've already done so much. You kept me outta prison, let my dog chew up your couch... I really should sleep on it while I'm here.”
“Actually,” Kate cuts in, “I have an energetic, curious little boy. A dog can't do much more damage than that.” She beams at Sam impishly and he resists the urge to sigh or roll his eyes, because he almost feels like the adult between the two of them, but he knows it's probably just to put him at ease. Only, why someone would do so much without expecting something in return - or maybe to purposefully catch him off guard - he can't fathom. The knife newly re-strapped to his ankle burns hot. “It's fine, Sam, really,” Kate continues, perhaps fazed by his silence. “I'm gonna be upstairs. Eat up and head to Adam's room. He has bunk-beds, so there's room.”
“...Okay,” Sam finally relents. Kate leaves him to follow her suggestions. He sits still for a moment, then wipes his bowl clean. He has to admit, Mrs. Dutta is an amazing cook, and he doesn't get home-cooked meals enough to deny them.
Upon finishing, Sam drinks two glasses of tap-water and wanders back into the foyer. Bones's deep breaths permeate in the room, soothing as a lullaby, and Sam is half-tempted to simply fall asleep on the couch next to him, so Kate has no choice but to keep him there. Even for Bones, though, the couch is small, its seats sagging, and Sam cringes after imagining the crick his neck would have the next morning.
He sighs, sends the staircase nearby a baleful glance, and gives in. He skulks into Adam's room like a ninja or a thief, like something that doesn't belong, before examining its dark innards. Posters of superheroes and cars mark the walls. One such wall has a shelf on it that little action figures and army men sit on. There's a toy chest at the end of the bunk-bed in the center. More toys are strewn about on the floor, which is outfitted with a furry jungle-patterned rug.
Adam's room looks just like normal kids' rooms that Sam has read about or seen on TV, but all Sam can think is, keeping your bed at the center of the room, directly in sight of the door, isn't strategically advantageous. Any old spirit could come in and toss your salad before you even woke. Not that he has a choice in the matter.
He chucks his bag onto the floor and quickly obtains a sack of salt out of it, which he uses to trace the doorway. He hopes Kate or Adam don't step into it by accident, because that would lead to uncomfortable questions. Before he climbs into the top bunk, he gets his first authentic look at Kate's son: messy blond hair pokes out from beneath a baby blue blanket and brackets chubby cheeks, one of which is pressed into a careworn teddy-bear's single ear. He looks safe enough - cute, even, though Dean would chew Sam out for using that adjective on anyone but a chick.
“You...have a great mom,” Sam whispers. He blushes immediately afterward, not sure why he spoke in the first place, but Adam just gives a sleep sigh, completely unaware, so Sam mounts the plastic ladder parallel his feet and burrows beneath the top bunk's blanket.
He doesn't mean to, but after only a few minutes, he can't keep his heavy eyelids apart anymore.
-
♥ NEXT! ♥
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Title: Every Boy Should Have Two Things (AO3)
Rating: PG-13
Author: ladyknightanka
Artist: rattyjol
Beta: nights_fang
Genre: AU, gen, kidfic, family
Warnings: Mild language, some violence, vague spoilers for 5.16: Dark Side of the Moon and 4.19: Jump the Shark.
Word Count: ~15k
Notes: This fic is an AU of Sam's anecdote in Dark Side of the Moon, about running away to Six Flags as a kid. Instead of making it there, Sam ends up at the Milligans'.
Art: Click the pretty here!
Summary: In retrospect, it's not really Six Flags, with its tacky rides, bad food and creepy mascots, that thirteen year old Sam wants so badly, enough to run away. It's normalcy, an apple-pie life. When he's deterred in Windom, Minnesota, and put into the custody of emergency room nurse Kate Milligan, he gets not only that, but a chance to experience having a mother and being a big brother to Kate's seven year old son, Adam.
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Every Boy Should Have Two Things
-
“Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother willing to let him have one,” ~Anonymous.
Sam wakes less than two seconds before Herb the bus driver's meaty hand lands on his shoulder. He and the corpulent man stare at one another a moment, wide-eyed, before Herb clears his throat and says, “Ya gotta get off now, kid.”
Sam glances out the foggy window he'd thus been dozing against. Other patrons from the tour bus have already congregated outside and are chatting with their respective companions.
“We're not at Six Flags yet,” Sam says, which earns him a deadpan look.
“Pit-stopping for grub,” Herb explains. “We're in Windom, Minnesota right now. I reckon Six Flags ain't for another office day yet.” He narrows his beady eyes at Sam. “Sure is weird, a kid like you travelin' so far all alone. Wouldn't it've been brighter to catch a plane from General Mitchell International?”
Sam scowls. “I already told you, I'm thirteen, not a kid, and my dad gave me permission. I'm meeting Mom at the park.” The lie comes easy now, even 'mom'. He's used it twice and stumbled only the first time.
“Whatever you say, champ,” Herb says with a shrug. “Still gotta get out.”
“Fine,” Sam replies. When Herb retreats to the front of the bus, he lets out a sigh of relief and stands on his tiptoes to grab his bag off the storage area above his seat.
Soon, if Dean's premonitions prove correct and Sam continues, as his brother eloquently put it, “Growing like a bladder twelve hours without a piss,” Sam won't need to stretch so far anymore; whatever he wants will be within reach.
Herb beckons impatiently from across the yellow 'do not pass' line near his steering wheel, and Sam chooses to focus on the sweat stains under the arms of his uniform - not Dean, who had been asleep when Sam snuck out.
He slips the strap of his bag onto his shoulder, shuffles off the bus and squints up at the golden arches of a McDonald's. It's not the kind of place he usually eats at, though no more classy than those Mom-and-Pop diners, either, but there's a gas station up from, a port-a-potty out back, and food inside, a-okay for him and the rest of the bus-lagged tour group.
Sam is the only one who isn't with a family member or ten. While John's counterfeit credit card and forged signature on the fake form Sam had typed up at Milwaukee's public library stave off most awkward questions, Sam's unsurprised when one of the mothers among the group, Mrs. Stone, breaks away from her gaggle of middle-aged friends to ask him, “Do you have money, hon? I was just about to go inside and order for Alan and Jake. I could pick you up something, too?”
She has a sweet, round face, a kind smile and brown eyes that blend with her coffee-cream-and-sugar skin-tone. One of her sons has also collected all one-hundred-and-fifty Pokemon cards, so Sam knows they're a good bunch. He beams at her, but politely declines. “No, thank you, ma'am. I'm fine.”
She nods and allows him to duck around her, into the McDonald's. There isn't a very long line. Most of their group has already overtaken what booths are available, so Sam resigns himself to getting a Big Mac and a drink, then exits to the half empty parking-lot again. It has no benches, but the McDonald's is enclosed by cement-block dividers, and they're as good a place as any to sit down.
Sam sets his bag aside and takes a sip of his Sprite. The paper packet of his burger is slightly soggy, but the smell it emits makes his mouth water, regardless. He peels the yellow wrapping halfway back and is about to take his first bite, when padded footsteps suddenly ring out behind him.
The hairs on the nape of his neck rise and his body unwinds to do the same. He whips around on his heel so fast that his sneaker almost makes contact with his soda, but instead of the monster he expects - demon, poltergeist, something, because this can't be as easy as it is - a dog sits on its haunches behind him, ears floppy as Sam's hair, tongue lolling with drool.
“S-Sam, are you okay?” Mrs. Stone inquires from afar.
Sam meets her nervous gaze and manages a soft laugh. “Everything's fine, ma'am. It's just a dog.” The dog in question woofs to emphasize his affirmation and Sam frowns at it. “You shouldn't've scared the nice lady,” he tells it sternly.
It whimpers and blinks big, sad brown eyes at him. Sam sighs and reclaims his seat, the dog now beside him. Its tawny fur is splattered with mud and it wears no identifying collar; it must be a stray, Sam thinks, though he finds it strange, how far it is from the main town.
“You must've followed the smell of food here, huh?” Sam tears a hefty chunk of his burger off. In a flash, the dog eats it out of his palm, and he has his answer. “No wonder you're hungry,” he says with a gentle smile. “You look like nothing but fur and bones. That's what I'll call you - Bones.”
He receives another woof for his efforts and rewards Bones with more food. It doesn't take them long to decimate their shared meal and takes even less time for the bus driver to call the whole group back. Sam stands with his bag, tosses his leftovers into a nearby bin, and starts for the bus. Bones follows.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Herb exclaims, once they draw near. “You can't bring the mutt with you, kid. It'll leave hair and crap all over my seats.”
Sam resists the urge to glare and instead mimes Bones's begging face from earlier. It always works wonders on Dean. “Aw, c'mon, dude, he won't do anything,” he promises. “It's only a few more hours. I'll make sure he doesn't make a mess.”
Herb flares his broad shoulders back and scowls. The sun's gleam behind him blurs his features, and the pose is so reminiscent of John that Sam inhales sharply. John saying 'no', depriving Sam of this trip that every other eighth grader but Sam was allowed to attend, that he had promised Sam could have, is what spurred Sam to run away in the first place. He can't let his father hold him back anymore.
Sam's lips set into a stubborn sneer to match Herb's - or John's, on his worst day - and other patrons of the bus pause to watch the showdown. Bones paws at his nose like he wants to hide. Mrs. Stone looks as if she desires the same thing.
“Sam, please,” she says, the fingers of both her hands interlinked in a pseudo-prayer. “Why don't you just come in? It'll get late soon, honey, and I'm sure the dog has someone to miss it...”
“No, he doesn't,” Sam replies, still firm. Bones may not be pedigree, but neither is Sam, and both of them deserve someone to notice if they're gone. Sam has Dean; he doesn't know what Bones has. “If Bones can't go, I won't, either.”
“Just let the dog on,” someone else calls out, but the bus driver holds out a hand, and Mrs. Stone's hopeful expression crumples.
“He won't go without the dog?” Herb spits. “Then he ain't going at all. Not on my charter. Shouldn't have let the ungrateful brat on, anyway. Have fun wrestling public transit all the way to the park.”
He storms inside his prone bus and, after a tense moment, everyone else follows. Except Mrs. Stone. “You sure you won't come?” she asks, an imploring note to the inquiry.
Sam shakes his head, but dredges up a dimpled smile. “Sorry, ma'am, but...thank you. Your kids are waiting.”
He watches as she reluctantly nods and enters the bus. It's gone within minutes. Bones stares after it with a forlorn whimper, but butts his head against Sam's knuckles when Sam pets him.
“'S okay, boy,” Sam mumbles. “Sometimes, two's all you need. Grownups suck, anyway. We'll be okay.”
A look up at the graying sky above dims his determination a bit. Mrs. Stone doesn't need to be a psychic to be right. Moisture thickens the air, a omen for rain. Sam pulls the large jacket he borrowed from Dean tighter around himself, and heads back into the McDonald's, thankfully open twenty four hours a day.
“Stay,” he says to Bones, outside the door. The dog cocks his head and barks, but doesn't move, so Sam wonders again whether he's been house-trained, though it hardly matters anymore.
There are only two employees inside the McDonald's: an older man who's probably the manager and a gum-popping girl about Dean's age, who has her head cradled in one palm, bopping to some unknown beat. Sam stops across the counter in front of her. He knows for a fact that there are just as many female monsters as male, but on appearance alone, she with her dyed-pink hair in pigtails seems less menacing. And besides, there's a Taurus PT99 tucked into his waistband, courtesy of Dean, and a sheathed bowie knife strapped against one of his socked ankles. He's ready.
The girl's eyes roll up to meet his when he asks, “Do you live in the town nearby...Windom?”
Her ID reads hello, my name is Peggy Barton, he mentally notes. She squints at him from behind bejeweled violet frames. “Why?”
Sam fidgets from foot to foot, brushes hair from his eyes, and tries to appear sheepish. “I, uh, my bus left me. I was hoping to hitch a ride to Windom's bus station?”
Peggy frowns at him for so long that he fears he'll have to either ask her manager or walk, but then she rolls her eyes again and curtly nods 'yes'. “Sure, but keep your hands to yourself, pipsqueak,” she says. “We're going straight to the bus stop.”
“Perfect,” Sam says with a grin. He's not Dean, after all; Peggy's virtue is safe with him.
Peggy flicks her wrist in the direction of an empty booth across the counter. “I get off in twenty minutes. Can you wait?”
“I'd rather, er, sit outside, if that's okay?” Sam replies. He thumbs back toward the sole exit, Bones visible through the glass. “I wanna keep my dog company.”
“Whatever floats your boat.” Peggy shrugs and tugs a few napkins out from a proximate dispenser to rub the counter down with.
Sam returns to Bones, who nuzzles up against him. Carding his fingers through the dog's grimy fur, Sam leans into his solid warmth. The roof over the entrance keeps them dry, but delicate drops somehow blow in, anyway. There's a rolled up wrapper near one of the two trashcans that stand, sentinel-like, in front of the McDonald's. Sam considers it briefly, then picks it up.
“Fetch boy,” he says, tossing it as far as he can. It starts to arc into a landing about halfway across the empty lot. Bones's dark eyes gleam. He wriggles his rump in preparation, tail manic atop it, and lunges after his prey.
They do this for almost all of the next half hour, till Sam's arm is sore, the makeshift ball is a crumbling mess, and Peggy finishes up. She stands behind him on the top step and stares for a couple of seconds, before dodging around him to one of the few cars still parked in the lot: a lime-green VW Bug Dean would consider an auto-mechanical travesty.
“C'mon, kid,” she calls over her shoulder. Sam and Bones trail her and she eyes the dog. “It's only, like, a fifteen minute drive. I hope you can keep Fido in check.”
“Bones is a good dog,” Sam replies quickly, recalling the bus driver's adverse reaction. Bones responds by sitting still on his haunches and heaving heavy breaths. Sam pets him. “I'll make sure he doesn't damage anything.”
“All right,” Peggy says, and climbs into the driver's seat. Sam tries the right-hand, backseat door and finds it unlocked. He crawls in as far as he can go, till he's behind the front, passenger-side seat, so Bones can hop in beside him. Just before wheeling off, Peggy rolls her window down and shouts, “See ya, Frank,” presumably to her boss, whom Sam catches waving in the rear-view. Then the drive to Windom commences.
They don't talk for all of five minutes, aside from Sam's gently murmured mantra, “Good boy.”
Soon, however, Peggy's brown eyes latch onto the rear-view mirror, and she says, “I've gotta brother 'bout your age.”
Sam shrugs. “And I have one yours.”
“Oh, cool.” She squints at the road ahead, stopping at appropriate lights and signs. Sam's not used to such careful driving, but when Peggy says, “My mom'd never let Tyler take the bus so far,” he realizes that there are a lot of differences between the Winchesters and Bartons.
Peggy keeps looking away from the wet street, toward him, and he knows her mom's not the only one; she probably wouldn't let her little brother travel alone, either. She'd worry about Tyler and is worried about Sam. A voice in Sam's head tells him Dean's worried, too, that Dean's tearing Milwaukee apart looking for him, getting himself into trouble along the way, but those thoughts only leech the smile from Sam's face. He can't quite manage another one to put Peggy at ease.
“Dean - that's my brother - didn't want me to take the bus so far by myself, either. Neither did Dad. Six Flags is forever away from home. 'Cept I really wanted to go.” Sam speaks more to camouflage his frown than anything. The lie comes bitter as dead man's blood to his lips. As if any of the places they stop in for their lifelong road-trip are home.
“So they let you?” Peggy inquires. Her incredulity cuts through his ire and Sam hesitantly nods.
Outside, buildings begin to pop up like bindweed - stores, offices and little cookie-cutter houses. There's not a lot of graffiti or litter, but some overgrown lawns. Windom will look nicer, more like the suburb it is, during the day, Sam thinks. As it is, it's a ghost town, hopefully not in the literal sense.
The bus station isn't too far into Windom. It's huge, blue and orange transit sign appears luminous even at night, but no one seems around to tend to it. Although Peggy slows near one of the bus stops that line the curb prior the station, she keeps the engine running. “You sure you wanna be here, kid? I don't know if there are still buses running so late. Windom's not really a night-owl's perch.”
“What else can I do?” Sam asks, fingers bunched into the material of his jeans. Bones's head hovers above his knee.
Peggy smiles, all glittery black lip-gloss, and says, “Come home with me and call your dad - or maybe that brother of yours. You can stay the night, play Tekken with Tyler. Mom won't mind, and I'm sure your family'd be relieved.”
Sam wants to say something pithy and Dean-like in response - “Come home with you? Why don'tcha buy me dinner first?” - but all that escapes his lips is a stammered, “I-I can't.” He fists his hands so tightly that his nails dig in and hurt.
Bones croons at him. Peggy looks like she wants to do the same, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, her mouth set into a grimace. “Look, kid, you did something stupid. Taking a bus from Windom to Six Flags? I've never been. It's way too far, 'specially if you live somewhere close by.” She meets Sam's gaze in the rear-view. “I get wanting to go, though, and I bet your dad'll understand, too. Everybody's thirteen sometime.”
“You don't know my dad,” Sam says, then opens the door closest to his vicinity and jumps out, Bones at his side. “Thanks, but you shouldn't waste anymore gas on me, okay? I'll be fine.”
Peggy doesn't answer at once, instead scrutinizing him for a few moments more. Sam knows he must look the picture of pitiful, his hanging knapsack practically taller than him, swinging like a guillotine above his ankle, Dean's borrowed jacket a large, shapeless bag on his smaller form, his hair plastered to his forehead thanks to a faint drizzle of rain.
“What's your name?” Peggy finally asks.
“Sam,” he replies.
She bites her bottom lip, but removes her foot from the Bug's brakes and quickly hurdles around a streetlamp. Sam watches her go, something heavy curled in his rib-cage that he almost hopes is a respiratory infection of some sort.
Once Peggy is out of sight, Sam hurries inside the glass enclosure of an adjacent bus stop. With one hand, he both beckons Bones in and grabs a newspaper from the stack parallel a side exit. He takes one from the middle so it isn't as wet, and lines pages out on the sole bench inside, long enough for him to stretch out on, though he has to repeat the process on the ground for Bones. He doesn't want his dog to sleep in a puddle, either.
Sam sprawls out on his improvised bed and gives Bones's head one last stroke. “G'night, boy.”
-
-
The entrance to the bus stop has no door. Wind blows through it perpetually.
Sam shivers, but keeps his eyes shut, practically to the point of pain. It's hardly thirty minutes later that flashing lights force him to unscrew his eyelids. He opens them to find a police car parked along the chalked-off area for buses. A bald man in uniform, wearing mirrored black shades, steps out of the errant vehicle.
Even as Sam sighs and says, “Peggy sent you, huh?” one of his hands drops to his waist, to his gun, just in case.
“I'm Officer Joe Barton,” the man replies, “Peggy's uncle. Her mom called and said she'd encountered a suspected runaway.”
Sam scowls. “Look, Officer, Peggy's nice and all, but she's wrong. I'm no runaway.”
“She said you told her your daddy didn't want you going on your own.” Officer Barton quirks an eyebrow.
“No, he didn't, but he still signed a waiver for that charter to take me,” Sam says, his free hand roving to the zipper on his bag, the other still inches away from his weapon. “How was I 'sposed to know the jerk bus driver would leave me stranded?”
Officer Barton angles both his arms up in a passive 'don't shoot' gesture and says, “Look, we'll clear everything up down at the station. You can show me your slip, I'll call your daddy-”
“No!” Sam interjects. He thinks Barton's eyes must round beneath his sunglasses, but it's hard to tell. Then again, as Dean always says, who wears sunglasses at night, anyway? Not like there's a sun around to shield your eyes from. All it does it make you look like a douche. Cheeks red, Sam mumbles, “Dad'll make me go home. I wanna go to Six Flags - I have to.”
If he goes back now, Dean and John will both keep a stricter watch on him. He knows it's because they care, because they want him to be safe from all the monsters that follow them around like rats do the Pied Piper, but if he goes back now, he'll never get to make a journey like this again and certainly won't ever find normal. That's worth missing his family for a little while longer.
Bones's head shoots up, and his ears prick at the note of distress in Sam's tone, despite Sam assuming he'd been asleep. The golden retriever’s lips peel back to bare his sharp teeth at Barton, a low growl husky in his throat. Barton takes a step back and his hand roves to his own utility belt, ready to grab something to defend himself with.
“Let's all just calm down,” he says.
Sam's fingers descend into the soft fur where Bones should have a collar, at the nape of the dog's neck. “Not if you even think about hurting my dog,” he grits out, then cranes his chin higher.
He wants to maintain his staring contest with Barton, wants to win it, but a big white van turns onto their street and slowly creeps toward them. Both Sam and Barton shoot it wary glances. It looks like the kind of car someone would use to pick up kids - or, with that much space, stock up on weapons and hunt in it - but the windows are not tinted, and Sam catches sight of a pretty blonde woman at its wheel, when it pulls up beside Barton's patrol car.
She rolls down her window and inquires, “Joe, that you?”
Barton's forehead scrunches. Sam thinks he's squinting behind his glasses. “Kate? Yeah, it's me. You heading home from your shift?”
“I am.” The woman - Kate, Barton had called her - hesitates, eyes on Sam. He can't tell if they're brown, blue or green in the distance. “Is everything all right? I saw you with the kid and...are you hurt, sweetie?”
She directs the last question to Sam, who shakes his head and replies, “No, ma'am. Just waiting for a bus outta town.”
This earns him another glare from Barton. “Look, kid, I ain't gonna let you stay out here all night. The next bus doesn't show up for-”
“I don't care,” Sam exclaims, and Bones growls, making his presence known once more.
Kate looks between the three of them, then murmurs, “You're a runaway.”
“...No, ma'am,” Sam says again, but she must notice the pause, because she smiles. It's not really a happy expression, more a tired crook of her mouth to the right, and something like guilt claws at Sam's stomach. She's pretty in a way that niggles in his brain, like a memory. She shouldn't look so worn.
She only confirms the wayward thought when she purses her lips in a no-nonsense way and tells Barton, “What can you do, anyway? Take him down to the station and let him sleep in a cell till his mother picks him up?”
“What are you saying?” Barton inquires. He finally removes his obnoxious sunglasses to lock eyes with Kate and better absorb her meaning.
She shrugs. “You're tired, I'm tired, the kid's probably tired, too. If it's all the same, maybe he can come with me tonight, and you can check on him tomorrow, to straighten all this out when none of us are in danger of tripping over our own feet?
“You...sure?” Barton asks, upon processing this. “It's a lot for you to take on, Kate. Another kid and a dog when you've already got work and Adam and-”
“-A day off tomorrow,” Kate interrupts. She smirks at Barton like she's won a prize, but her smile and eyes soften when she surveys Sam's slack jaw. “Besides,” she continues softly, “I want to help because he reminds me of Adam. Ever seen another kid with a stubborn streak like that? He's got the same tantrum face and everything.”
“Guess so,” Barton relents.
“So it's settled.” Kate claps her hands over the steering wheel, then catches Sam's gaze. “That is, if-”
“Sam,” he whispers, though he's not really sure why. He'd have heckled Barton before giving him even that, if it was just them. It would have made Dean proud, at least, but harassing a pretty lady likely wouldn't. “My name is Sam Lennon.” He startles when Bones breaks out of his loose grasp and leaps to Kate's window-side, where he sits up on his back legs and wags his tail. Kate laughs and extends her fingers for Bones to sniff. Sam stares at the two of them, then mutters, “I guess...if Bones's okay with it, we can go with you.”
Kate beams at them both and retracts her hand from Bones's snout to unlock the door with a click. Sam steps around Barton to climb into the van's backseat, precariously slow though his fears have mostly been allayed by Bones's reaction to Kate. Animals are not as blind to the supernatural as humans.
“Christo,” Sam still says, as he shuts the door.
“Bless you,” Kate answers distractedly, before wiggling her fingers at Barton and taking the van out of 'park'. Sam marvels at how the irony flies over her head. Once they reach a traffic light and stop, Kate turns around in her seat to extend her hand to him, as if she thinks he's her equal. He entangles her fingers in his own and likes that they're warm, but not completely soft - a little calloused, even, how he wouldn't typically imagine a woman's skin to be. She's wearing sea-foam scrubs that set off her hazel eyes, and wind from the open window beside her blows her hair into his face. Her shampoo smells pleasant, some sort of flower blend. “Call me Kate, if you like?”
“Um, okay,” Sam says, then flicks his head toward the fogged-up window nearest him. Droplets of water spritz off and hit it; lines drip down. Sam begins to finger-paint on the moist surface.
Kate must realize that it's an excuse not to converse, because she riffles the radio on and starts to hum along to a Billy Joel song. Bones accentuates the chorus with delighted barks and howls. Those are the only sounds Sam hears for the next couple of miles.
The houses they pass look more and more run-down in time, white-washed more than optic white, some shillings on their roofs sheared away by nature. Kate stops in front of one of these and rounds into its driveway. She looks back over her shoulder and notices that Sam's forehead is crinkled analytically.
Her smile is easy as she says, “I know it's not the Taj Mahal, but I like it. It's home.”
“I like it, too,” Sam hurriedly affirms. It's nicer than most places he's stayed in, anyway, and certainly more so than the dilapidated Milwaukee motel he'd prowled out of - better than anywhere John prefers, honestly, where they wouldn't even mind if you left a body behind.
Kate unlocks the van's doors, and Sam barrels out after Bones, taking in the toys in the yard: little Tonka trucks, a tricycle, scattered action figures and battered stuffed animals. “You're a mom?” he asks Kate, and when she nods, feels suddenly warmer in the chilled rain.
“I've got a little boy, Adam,” Kate says. Her smile etches deeper and her eyes twinkle like the stars above. She moves to the entrance, the number four-nineteen lopsided on it, and fiddles with her keys. “You'll like him, I think. Adam's got quite the fan-club 'round here.”
“Probably,” Sam agrees, hushed, kicking up dust with the toe of one sneaker. “'M not around kids all that much.” Or nice houses owned by nice ladies, he doesn't add aloud.
Kate opens the door with a little push, but doesn't immediately enter. Rather, she turns around and sets both her hands on Sam's shoulders. More warmth seeps through her touch. “You'll do great,” she says, lips curled upwards on either end, pink and free of gloss, unlike the girls Sam's used to, Dean's girls, who can't be too much younger than Kate, but may as well be the Mona Lisa, for all their bombastic face-paint.
Dean is what Uncle Bobby calls a horn-dog. He'd probably like Kate, too - would definitely tell her so unashamedly, if he did - and Sam is abruptly relieved that his brother's not around. Kate releases him with a final squeeze and steps inside her house. Bones brushes past Sam's legs to do the same.
Sam glances over his left shoulder, at the midnight sky and the moon and stars that adorn it, then follows them into a slightly cluttered, homey foyer. It's swath with indigo-blue carpeting like the sky outside, a pale tan couch you'd never be able to get blood out of, and a fireplace with a bunch of picture-frames balanced on top of it.
“Kate, is that you?” a female voice calls, from a room beside a staircase.
“Yes, Kala, I'm home,” Kate replies, just as an elderly woman walks in. She has steel-gray hair in a tight bun, owlish glasses, and wrinkles around her smiling mouth and eyes. Kate turns to Sam and says, “This is Mrs. Kala Dutta, my neighbor. She watches Adam when I work. How was he?”
The latter question is directed toward Kala, who replies, “Oh, same as ever. A little angel...who sometimes pays too much mind to the devil on his shoulder.”
Kate laughs, one of her fair eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. “You spoil him, Kala, but thanks for helping out.”
“It's nothing,” the woman says. “I make up for not spoiling my grand-kids enough with Adam.”
“Speaking of your grand-kids, have fun in Minneapolis. You deserve some time with a family other than mine.” Kate winks, but when Kala's eyebrows furrow, she adds, “Don't worry about us, really. As you can see, I've got some guests for tomorrow-” She inclines her chin at Sam, who gives an awkward wave, “-so I'll definitely spend all the time I want with my little man. Wouldn't be fair if you couldn't, too, huh?”
“You're right, of course.” Kala comes forward and encircles Kate in a quick hug. Before retreating, she also waves at Sam and Bones. Sam watches her go.
“She's had a tough time since losing her husband,” Kate says, which jars Sam out of his observations and redirects his attention to her. She doesn't, however, speak anymore on the matter. “You wait here. I'll go see if I have anything in your size. Make yourself at home, hon.”
She lopes out of the room, up the stairs, but instead of taking a seat on her unblemished sofa and possibly wetting it - which an excited Bones does well enough on his own - Sam wanders closer to the fireplace. There are several pictures of the little boy Kate mentioned, Adam, but of Kate as well.
In one, she's even younger, barely older than Dean, who's seventeen now, with a bundled baby in her arms, grinning like she just won a marathon, although she's in what looks to be a diminutive hospital cot. The baby's tiny head sticks out from above his pale blue blankets, his hair fair as his mother's, his chubby cherub cheeks red and eyes a sleepy gray-blue.
Sam traces a fingertip along the rim of another frame. It's cool to the touch, but the picture is all warmth. The little boy inside grins widely, older now, a colorful cone-hat atop his flyaway blond hair, Kate at his side, her hand on his shoulder, and a birthday cake in front of him with a wax number five candle, in all shades of the rainbow. Footsteps pad into the room. Kate's back.
“You...really love him, huh?” Sam asks her.
There's a pause, then, “Of course. More than anything. I don't think any mom could say different.” He can hear the smile in her voice, without looking back.
“I dunno,” Sam says, rolling his shoulders back lightly. He pauses for a beat too long and hears Kate's sharp intake of breath, which finally prompts him to face her. “Uh, no. I know you're a nurse and everything, but I didn't mean it like that. The only way my mom ever hurt me was...by dying.”
Kate inhales again and crosses the distance between them, both hands braced on his shoulders once more. “Oh, honey, I'm so sorry,” she whispers.
“Oh no, I, uh, I never really knew her,” Sam says, unable to make eye contact. He glowers at his sneakers instead. “I was only maybe-” He reaches back to touch another of the picture-frames, this one between the other two. In it, Kate's son is hardly older than the first picture, but much younger than the second, “-this big when she died? I hardly felt like I ever had a mother, you know? It wasn't much of a loss.”
“Still...” Kate bites her bottom lip and pulls him into a hug before he can object. She's perhaps minutely shorter than him, so his head can fall into the crook of her shoulder easily, but he remains stiff for a few seconds, arms out behind her. Then, he squeezes back.
They stay intertwined until Bones woofs from the couch. Sam pulls away and carefully doesn't notice the surreptitious way Kate wipes one eye. He points at her armload: a neatly folded white button up shirt atop pants of the same color, with thin blue pinstripes vertically lining both articles of clothing. A white towel sits below them.
“These for me? I actually have stuff in my bag.” His ears heat at how he forgot to mention that, but Kate's cheeks pink in embarrassment, too.
“Oh, okay then.” She emits a self-deprecating laugh, and lifts the shirt by its collar with her thumb and forefinger. “This is a spare set of pajamas from the hospital, anyway. Don't suppose that's what all the kids are wearing now?”
“No,” Sam agrees, offering a wan smile. He thumbs over one shoulder and continues, “Can I just use your bathroom? I was on a bus for a while, so there weren't any showers...”
“Of course,” Kate says. She moves to set the pajamas down on the couch, next to Bones, and Sam hides a wince. No way Bones won't get the white cotton dirty. Kate doesn't seem to mind, though. She even plops down next to the dog and takes his head into her lap. “Take the stairs and the bathroom is the second door to your left, 'kay?”
“Got it,” Sam says, as she begins toweling Bones off, deaf to his exaggerated howls.
Sam takes the steps upstairs two by two, and listens there for a moment, but Bones's cries have dulled, thankfully. He's glad, because nice as she is, he's sure Kate doesn't want her son woken by their commotion. Adam's door is slightly cracked, with stickers and splashes of paint all over the wood, directly across from the bathroom.
Sam stares at it for a second, before entering his destination, where he flings his bag on top of the lidded toilet. The bathroom is small, but smells like floral air-freshener, has flower-patterned rugs and duckies printed on the shower curtain. It's so cute, so unlike any of the motel bathrooms Sam has been in, that he showers in a rush, changes into a t-shirt and wool pants from his bag, then retreats. Drying his hair with his towel only makes the generic baby shampoo smell filtrate into the air. Again, he's glad Dean's not around.
He slowly descends down the steps, back into the foyer, and finds Bones asleep on the couch, alone. Soft hums filter through the open kitchen door nearby and meet his ears. Kate's back is to him. She faces the kitchen counter and extracts a bowl of something from a microwave.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she says, turning around and setting the bowl on a small table with four chairs. “It's veggie curry with rice.
Sam squints at the contents of the bowl. “Oh, um, you didn't have to do that for me.”
“I didn't.” Kate flicks her wrist dismissively and grins. “Mrs. Dutta is an expert chef. I, on the other hand, burn water, so expect pizza tomorrow.”
“I like pizza,” Sam says with a laugh. He tries one spoonful of Mrs. Dutta's curry and moans. “This is good, though.”
“Thought you'd say so. Enjoy.” Kate starts to exit, but somehow senses that Sam might protest, and adds, “Don't worry, I had some already. I'm just gonna go get cleaned up, then put you down with Adam, if that's all right?”
“Kate, no...” Sam purses his lips and flashes her what Dean calls his 'bitchface'. “You've already done so much. You kept me outta prison, let my dog chew up your couch... I really should sleep on it while I'm here.”
“Actually,” Kate cuts in, “I have an energetic, curious little boy. A dog can't do much more damage than that.” She beams at Sam impishly and he resists the urge to sigh or roll his eyes, because he almost feels like the adult between the two of them, but he knows it's probably just to put him at ease. Only, why someone would do so much without expecting something in return - or maybe to purposefully catch him off guard - he can't fathom. The knife newly re-strapped to his ankle burns hot. “It's fine, Sam, really,” Kate continues, perhaps fazed by his silence. “I'm gonna be upstairs. Eat up and head to Adam's room. He has bunk-beds, so there's room.”
“...Okay,” Sam finally relents. Kate leaves him to follow her suggestions. He sits still for a moment, then wipes his bowl clean. He has to admit, Mrs. Dutta is an amazing cook, and he doesn't get home-cooked meals enough to deny them.
Upon finishing, Sam drinks two glasses of tap-water and wanders back into the foyer. Bones's deep breaths permeate in the room, soothing as a lullaby, and Sam is half-tempted to simply fall asleep on the couch next to him, so Kate has no choice but to keep him there. Even for Bones, though, the couch is small, its seats sagging, and Sam cringes after imagining the crick his neck would have the next morning.
He sighs, sends the staircase nearby a baleful glance, and gives in. He skulks into Adam's room like a ninja or a thief, like something that doesn't belong, before examining its dark innards. Posters of superheroes and cars mark the walls. One such wall has a shelf on it that little action figures and army men sit on. There's a toy chest at the end of the bunk-bed in the center. More toys are strewn about on the floor, which is outfitted with a furry jungle-patterned rug.
Adam's room looks just like normal kids' rooms that Sam has read about or seen on TV, but all Sam can think is, keeping your bed at the center of the room, directly in sight of the door, isn't strategically advantageous. Any old spirit could come in and toss your salad before you even woke. Not that he has a choice in the matter.
He chucks his bag onto the floor and quickly obtains a sack of salt out of it, which he uses to trace the doorway. He hopes Kate or Adam don't step into it by accident, because that would lead to uncomfortable questions. Before he climbs into the top bunk, he gets his first authentic look at Kate's son: messy blond hair pokes out from beneath a baby blue blanket and brackets chubby cheeks, one of which is pressed into a careworn teddy-bear's single ear. He looks safe enough - cute, even, though Dean would chew Sam out for using that adjective on anyone but a chick.
“You...have a great mom,” Sam whispers. He blushes immediately afterward, not sure why he spoke in the first place, but Adam just gives a sleep sigh, completely unaware, so Sam mounts the plastic ladder parallel his feet and burrows beneath the top bunk's blanket.
He doesn't mean to, but after only a few minutes, he can't keep his heavy eyelids apart anymore.
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♥ NEXT! ♥
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