The Boys of Summer, for alexisjane, part 1 of 2
Title: The Boys of Summer, Part I
Recipient: AlexisJane
Rating: T
Words: ~8900
Warnings: some violence against children, child death (not Sam or Dean)
Author's Notes: Set sometime after 9.7 "Bad Boys" (flashbacks), but before 4.13 "After School Special" (flashbacks) ; Thank you truly to my very helpful beta!
Summary: Prompt: Young Sam thinks he found a case. John won't take him seriously but Dean does.
The swings were covered in a layer of dirt and grime, like no one had sat on their black, cracked seats in awhile. There were three swings, but one was broken so with a studied eye, Sam compared the remaining two before lowering himself onto the one that seemed slightly less dirty. As his weight settled he could feel absorbed heat radiate from the seat, through his jeans, warming his body on what was already a brutally hot day.
He’d woken up that morning in yet another no-name motel in yet another no-name town. It looked and felt just like the hundreds - maybe thousands - of other no-name motels Sam had been in over the years. The only difference this time was the presence of the playground. Though it was in disrepair, it was a welcome reprieve from the trappings of the motel room, seemingly identical to everywhere else they’d ever been - threadbare, stained carpet; hard, thin mattresses; lumpy pillows; moldy showers; static television reception; the just barely concealed scent of stale cigarette smoke.
It was August, and school should be starting again soon. For many reasons Sam didn’t enjoy summers like most other kids his age probably did; now that he and Dean were older their dad would take them on more hunts - which Dean loved, and Sam mostly hated. There was a brief moment, when his dad started teaching him to shoot, and began telling him about the various things they would hunt, that he felt excited and anxious to go out with Dean and their dad - but after his first hunt he lost a lot of that romanticism. It was bloody, and messy, and dangerous and Sam didn’t like how it made him feel; he didn’t like being “in on the secret” while everyone around him was oblivious; it made him feel even more apart from everyone else than he already did. And so he started to crave anything that made him feel “normal”, of which school was one.
For the last few years he spent much of his summers simply counting the days until he could feel that normalcy again. This year was no different; he should be starting the eighth grade. But he didn’t know where, and he didn’t know when and whenever Sam tried to ask his dad if he could look into registration for the school year, he would just offer a grunt and shrug his shoulders noncommittally while never answering the question.
Dean was no help either, shrugging his shoulders just like their dad would, but then offering a half apologetic smile. Sam knew Dean didn't like school; but he also knew Dean knew Sam did, there was just little either of them could do about it. It was just the way it was - and Sam thought sometimes their dad probably wished he didn’t need to put them in school at all. But Sam also knew eventually he would. He knew their dad would take a job in some town somewhere and make Sam and Dean enroll. They’d be starting late and they’d be behind but for Sam that was part of the joy. He felt a thrill at playing catch-up and trying to learn as much as he could as fast as he could. He just wanted that feeling back; he craved it, he was ready for it. Hunting never gave him the same joy. Not like he knew it did Dean.
Sam sighed dramatically into the oppressive heat, exhaling and blowing up into his overlong bangs. The soft breeze from his breath was relief against his damp forehead, his thick hair trapping the humid heat there. Sam could feel tiny droplets forming above his eyebrows. He needed a haircut, or at the very least he needed the long fringes of his bangs trimmed back to keep them from falling into his eyes, or more importantly to alleviate the discomfort of a hot and sweaty head.
Sighing again, Sam swatted at the flies buzzing around him, the rusty swing creaking beneath him. It really was a miracle some of the equipment in this tiny playground was still standing and intact, Sam thought as he looked around; there was a metal slide glinting in the afternoon sun (certainly unusable from the heat), a cracked and warped wooden see-saw (certain to give a person splinters just by looking at it), and monkey bars with posts rusted almost as bad as the thick metal legs of the swing set. Sam thought the swing set and the monkey bars might have been a matching red at one point, but it was almost impossible to tell anymore.
The edges of the playground along the fence line were showing signs of overgrowth, grasses and yellow-flowered weeds alive with bees were encroaching onto the gravelly substrate of the small play area. Sam wondered how much more neglect it would take before the little park ceased to be an escape for anyone anymore - he didn’t figure it would be long before it all just fell down and was overgrown.
Exhaling a long breath, Sam began to spin his swing in a tight circle, the rusted chains twisting above him as flakes of rust showered down; his feet kicking up a tiny cloud of gravelly dust as he toed at the ground. Round, and round again. When the swing was twisted tight as it could go Sam lifted his feet off the ground and let himself spin, the chains above him untwisting as more rust flakes fell, until finally the swing righted itself and he stilled.
Sighing again with mounting irritation and frustration, Sam looked up at the brilliant sky. It was so quiet - not a sound anywhere, except for the flies that wouldn’t leave him alone. Sam knew they were somewhere in the Midwest, exactly where he wasn’t sure as he’d been asleep when his dad had pulled into this place. What he did know was there was a lot of humidity; his hair was damp with it and again he thought how nice a haircut would be, wiping at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.
Looking around - beyond the edges of the playground - Sam saw the parking lot of the motel was mostly empty save a beater minivan (with Oklahoma plates), and his dad’s Impala. Maybe they were in Oklahoma? Sam thought before wishing he could muster the energy to care.
His dad and Dean were still asleep in the motel room. Sam had left them, the small window A/C unit blasting noisily, when he’d come outside. Or, maybe Dean was up now and cleaning his guns. Though Sam was pretty sure if either Dean or his dad were up they’d have come outside by now to find him. He could barely go anywhere without either his dad or his brother on him.
Suddenly a voice echoed from across the parking lot, catching Sam’s attention. He watched as a tall, thin blond woman led a blond-haired boy out of a room (on the other end of the strip of rooms from where their room was) and towards the beater minivan. The kid didn’t seem thrilled to be going wherever the woman (his mother maybe?) was taking him - he walked (limping slightly, Sam thought) with his head hung low and his arms crossed. Sam watched with detached interest as the van backfired when started, kicking out a cloud of black smoke before pulling out of the parking lot and onto the highway heading away from the motel.
Not moments later, Dean’s voice cut through the thick, humid air, calling Sam back inside.
----
Later that afternoon, their dad gave Sam and Dean the same lecture he always did every time he left for a hunt - the hunts he didn’t take them on anyway, and those were fewer and farther between as he and Dean got older - but the lecture was always the same, it hadn’t changed in years. No matter how old Sam and Dean were it was always their dad telling them: he wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone; they needed to be careful; Dean, watch out for your brother; Sam, don’t go anywhere without Dean; and so on and so on, blah blah blah.
He left soon after. Sam felt relief at his departure, but then immediately felt guilty for it. Dean, after he’d finished bitching about being left behind again, ordered a pizza and promptly ate half of it, also helping himself to a few of the beers their dad had left in the motel room fridge. Sam just picked at his dinner, feeling sweaty, and dirty, and just generally irritated. It was how he felt more often than not anymore, and he hated it. He wanted to believe there was more to life than what he was seeing; than what his dad was teaching him. He wanted to think he could do more than just live day to day, week to week, in crappy motel rooms. He had to know there was more to life than that. It was too depressing, otherwise.
Dean noisily smacked his lips, licking his fingers clean of pizza grease before he thumbed the button on the television remote.
“Sweet! The free HBO actually works here,” he grinned at Sam who was staring back at his brother with disdain; sometimes Dean could be so gross.
Nodding, Sam offered a forced half-smile back at his brother. But when Dean settled on watching a noisy, grotesque slasher-flick, Sam had to get out of the room. He wasn’t in the mood for the sights or the sounds and so he found himself wandering back out towards the swing set, but not before Dean had called after him to “stay close”.
The pamphlets in the motel room advertising local real estate and fast food joints told Sam they were on the far western outskirts of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the sun had already disappeared below the horizon as Sam closed the motel room door (but not before giving Dean a noncommittal affirmation that he wouldn’t wander far). The air was only slightly less hot than earlier, but just as humid, and a thin sheen of sweat quickly formed on his forehead. Sam could see the lone light in the parking lot, seeming to float roughly 15 feet above the edge of the playground - moths and various other flying insects swarming in its glow. It didn’t do much for lighting the parking lot, but it was enough for Sam to see to make his way by.
His shoes were silent on the asphalt of the parking lot, and he wasn’t sure it was only his imagination that with each step there seemed to be a slight “bounce” to the ground; the asphalt soft and pliable beneath him - melted a bit, he thought.
It wasn’t until he was almost to the short fence that surrounded the motel playground that he noticed there was already someone there; it was the blond kid from earlier, swinging lazily on one of the two intact swings. Sam paused just short of the fence and the reach of the illumination of the lone light. It took him only a brief moment to determine he wasn’t in the mood to be friendly to the strange kid, so Sam started to turn away. That was when the kid actually called out to him.
“You can come in,” he said, “it’s a free country ya know.”
“I know,” Sam grumbled under his breath as he turned back, pausing just one more moment before crossing through the opening in the low fence and sitting down on the second swing. The third swing hung from only one chain, moving listlessly in the mild evening breeze, creaking and squeaking ever so slightly as it swayed.
“I’m Kade,” the kid said.
“Sam.”
The kid nodded and a silence fell between them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but when the mosquitos started swarming, Sam started to slowly swing back and forth, noticing Kade following suit. For the next ten minutes or so, the two of them swung back and forth, the creaking and groaning and constant shower of rusty flakes from the swing set causing no alarm to rise in their minds.
What finally made them both cease was the blond woman, appearing outside and yelling for Kade to come in.
Sam stopped pumping his legs and let himself slowly drift to a stop. Kade did the same.
“That’s my mom.”
Sam nodded.
“So, I’ll see ya ‘round,” Kade said as he stood.
“Yeah, see ya,” Sam replied, pushing his damp hair back from his sweaty face, his hand dirty with rust and grime, and watching Kade head towards his mother, a slight limp in his step.
----
The following morning, Sam woke up to find their dad back. He was slumped over and snoring lightly in the worn armchair in the far corner of the room. Looking across at the other bed Sam saw Dean, also still asleep. The clock on the nightstand between them glowed in bright red numbers, 6:43 AM.
As quietly as he could, Sam climbed from bed and set out to make breakfast. Thankfully, there were a few groceries in the fridge, specifically some eggs and milk. The scent of the eggs cooking soon had Dean and his dad stirring, but when Sam started brewing the coffee, both got right up, bleary-eyed though they were.
Over breakfast their dad told them about the job. A straight-forward poltergeist haunting, he said. Dean begged to go along, but their dad refused him, telling him to just stay with Sam, that he’d be able to finish the job quicker if he just worked it alone.
“It shouldn’t be more than another day or so,” he’d added when Dean began to argue.
“But-,” Dean began, but was cut off.
“No, Dean. Just watch out for your brother,” their dad growled and Dean huffed.
Sam wanted to tell his dad he didn’t need babysitting by his older brother; he was old enough to stay by himself and if Dean wanted to go he should, but he knew it would do no good. His dad would only get mad and then there’d be an argument and really there was no reason to borrow trouble. So, Sam remained silent, Dean sulked, and their dad left without anything more to say on the subject.
A few hours later, Sam was back out at the playground. Dean had left, walking down the street to the gas station for a few more provisions, making Sam promise not to leave the motel room until he got back. The moment Dean was out of sight, though, Sam was out the door and into the sun - brutal and hot though it was - because anything was better than staring at the walls of that room. They felt confining, like they were closing in on Sam intending to trap him there, in the life they emulated, forever. At least outside there was fresh air, and space, and semblance of normalcy, temporary though it might be. There were no piles of guns on the table to be cleaned, or bloody clothes to be washed up and patched. There was just…youth, and freedom - even if the freedom was really just an illusion.
Not too long after Sam sat on the swing, Kade appeared. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before - but then again, so was Sam.
“Hey,” Sam said and Kade offered a tight smile.
“Hi,” he responded, moving slowly and sitting down on the other swing.
Sam felt beads of sweat that had been forming at his hairline start to move slowly down his forehead, and he shook his head gently, annoyed. The beads fell, dripping into his eyes and onto his nose and with a soft sigh Sam wiped them away.
“So do you live here or something?” Sam asked, turning to Kade, intent to do more than just swing in silence.
“Nah,” Kade answered, “Omaha.”
“Oh,” Sam nodded, pumping his legs just enough to gain some momentum and with it some slight relief, a soft breeze associated with his movement.
“Are you on vacation?” Sam asked after a bit.
“No,” Kade replied, but he didn’t elaborate and Sam didn’t push for more.
They swung back and forth for a while, until Sam saw Dean appear around the corner of the motel into the parking lot, carrying two plastic bags that appeared to be bursting. Sam watched his brother’s easy expression harden when he saw him.
“Shit,” Sam sighed and when Kade looked at him questioningly he nodded towards Dean’s approaching figure.
“My brother,” Sam elaborated, “I wasn’t supposed to leave the motel room.”
Kade didn’t respond, but Sam saw him level a narrowed gaze at Dean.
“Sammy,” Dean was at the fence now, and his tone was laced with warning.
“I know, okay?” Sam sighed. “I got bored. And that room is ugly and uncomfortable.”
Dean shook his head, but the disapproving look on his face softened somewhat.
“Just-,” his eyes darted between Sam and Kade, “be careful, okay? Don’t go anywhere else?”
Sam grinned and when Dean rolled his eyes and started towards their motel room, Sam gave a soft laugh.
“That was weird,” Kade said, causing Sam to laugh again.
“My brother is weird,” Sam replied, wishing Kade could understand even a little how true that observation really was.
“Let’s see who can jump the farthest,” Sam said, suddenly energized despite the heat, pumping his legs rapidly and rising quickly into the air.
When he felt he was as high as he could get and when the swing was at its apex Sam launched himself into the air, flying for just the briefest of moments before landing on his feet with a loud grunting exhale. His momentum continued to carry him forward though, and he ended up on his hands and knees. The deep gravel substrate of the playground had somewhat lessened the impact, but not so much that Sam didn’t feel it travel through his body, reverberating in his bones. It wasn’t painful, rather it was invigorating and Sam felt truly alive. Twisting around, he sat back on his rear and beckoned Kade with his hands.
“C’mon!”
The blond boy swung back and forth a few more times before releasing, landing just a foot or so short of where Sam sat.
“Yes!” Sam exclaimed with both arms reaching towards the sky, “I win!”
Kade looked up from where he was crouched in the gravel, on his hands and knees as Sam had been after he’d jumped. But something in the look on his face dissipated all the joy from Sam’s body.
“What?” Sam sat up straight, his senses attuned to the fact that something wasn’t right.
“I just-,” Kade gasped, breathless, “it hurts is all.”
“What hurts? Where?” Sam crab-crawled towards Kade, suddenly frightened that he’d goaded his new…friend?...into jumping off a swing and breaking his leg, or something worse.
Kade sat back on his butt. With a look at Sam he then pulled up the leg of his jeans exposing a giant bruise, covering almost his entire calf. It was a deep, dark black, with slight purpling on the edges. It looked very fresh and suddenly it made sense why Kade had looked to be limping the night before, and why he was wearing long pants on such a hot summer day. Not that Sam would have even questioned it, after all he was wearing jeans too, but that was simply because Sam owned no shorts. There was no room for exposed skin in hunting.
“Holy…,” Sam whispered, his voice fading.
Kade sighed heavily.
“It’s why my mom brought me here,” he said, pulling his pant leg back down and hiding the awful bruise from sight.
“She thinks it was my dad. That he hit me. Even though I told her a thousand times it wasn’t.”
“Um,” Sam bit his lower lip, unsure of what to say in response. “Are you sure it wasn’t?”
Kade narrowed his eyes at Sam, “Yeah, I’m sure. I think I would know. He might get mad and yell sometimes, but he doesn’t hit me. And besides, all dads yell.”
“Yeah. My dad yells sometimes too,” Sam offered his agreement and Kade’s expression cleared some.
“But my dad didn’t do it,” Kade reiterated.
“Then what happened? Why doesn’t your mom believe you?” Sam asked, brushing his hair back from his sweaty face.
Kade glanced over his shoulder towards where the beater minivan was parked, before turning back to face Sam. He breathed in deeply then raised the hem of his t-shirt, revealing another large bruise around his ribcage, only this one looked a few days older - it had a lot more green and yellow at the edges, the middle a more bluish-purple - not the deep purplish-black like the leg bruise had been.
Sam raised his eyebrows at Kade, who dropped his shirt and proceeded to pull up his left sleeve, revealing a third bruise, this one in the very distinct shape of a hand. It, too, was somewhat faded, but still looked really painful.
“She just doesn’t believe me,” Kade said.
“But why not?” Sam pressed, the hunter instinct inside him thrumming, unbidden though it was. If it wasn’t his dad…
“She just doesn’t, okay,” Kade said, his tone more aloof; defensive even.
“But someone is hurting you,” Sam said slowly, cautiously. His instincts that this was possibly something supernatural growing stronger, even as he wished it wouldn’t be true. Surely if it were a person, another kid or something, Kade would gladly tell someone.
Kade shrugged, and Sam sighed inwardly.
“It doesn’t matter. Just forget it,” Kade stood slowly, and Sam followed suit.
“You can tell me,” Sam said softly.
Kade looked at him, and Sam could see him debating with himself.
“You won’t believe me,” Kade finally said, brushing his jeans of the gravel dust that had accumulated. Sam could see him wincing as his hand touched the bruised leg.
“I will believe you,” Sam said as earnestly as he could, “I swear.”
Kade’s pale blue eyes stared at Sam for what felt like an eternity before he sighed.
“I think my house is haunted,” he started and Sam sighed inwardly. Even as he’d sensed it would be, he had also hoped it wasn’t going to be something supernatural.
“Aren’t you gonna laugh?” Kade said then, his voice quiet.
Sam shook his head, “I said I’d believe you. And I do. I’ve-,” he paused and considered how much to tell the other kid, finally settling on ‘as little as possible’, “I’ve seen ghosts before.”
Kade looked at him, some doubt in his expression.
“Oh,” he finally replied. “Um, have you ever seen ghosts that hurt people?”
Sam nodded slowly and he saw a wave of relief wash over Kade’s face.
Still, flashbacks of his first hunt - the ghost of a woman who’d been burned alive by her husband - playing in his head. Three people had died before Sam, Dean, and their dad had been able to find her remains (a lock of her hair, from when she was a baby, stored in a locket worn by the woman's mother) and destroy them.
“There’s a ghost of a kid in my house, and he shows up at night and hits me with a baseball bat,” Kade’s expression was desperate, pained.
“It started about a week after we moved to Omaha from Oklahoma,” Kade moved to sit on the swings, and Sam followed.
Toeing at the dusty gravel beneath the swing, Kade stared at his feet as he talked. Sam didn’t interrupt him, listening intently to gather any clues. This was his first time learning of a real case, all on his own, and even though everything in his body told him he had to get away from his dad and hunting as soon as he possibly could, he also couldn’t ignore the fact that Kade needed help. What he was dealing with was not fair, and dangerous, and Sam was compelled to help, regardless of how he felt about hunting.
As Kade told it, he and his parents had just moved to Omaha from Oklahoma, and it had been just after their first week in the house that things had started happening. He’d awoken to find a pale-faced, angry boy standing over him with a baseball bat in his hands. He had swung it once and hit Kade in the side before he’d disappeared. If not for the immense pain of the attack, Kade had told Sam, he would have thought what he’d seen had just been a bad dream.
Kade didn’t tell his mom or his dad about what had happened, and had done his best to hide the bruise that appeared the next morning. Two nights later the kid showed up again, swinging at Kade’s shoulders. The next night he was there again, taking aim at Kade legs.
The angry kid, the boy, didn’t appear with any sort of regularity or reason, and Kade didn’t know what to make of his presence at all. He had never really believed in ghosts, but now there was one, and it was hurting him, and he didn’t know what to do about it - all he knew was no matter where in the house he slept, the kid always seemed to find him. He was terrified to go to sleep, and growing anxious and weary and his mother was starting to notice. Kade could see her watching him and it made all the stress of the situation even worse.
The first time his mother saw the bruising though, Kade had been able to explain it away. He had fallen off his bike, he’d said. But when the handprint bruise appeared a few days later she grew suspicious and started asking more specific questions about who he played with in the neighborhood, and about his dad.
Then, a few nights after that Kade and his dad had had a big fight over Kade playing baseball (Kade didn’t want to - he never wanted to see another baseball bat for as long as he lived) and the lady who lived next door had wasted no time coming over later to tell his mom about the fight. The following morning was when the calf bruise showed up and there was nothing Kade could say to convince his mom that it hadn’t been his dad hurting him.
Then, while his dad had been gone at work, she had packed up the old minivan and they’d left.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” Kade said, “but I do know we aren’t going home, and we aren’t staying here.”
“Have you tried telling your mom about the ghost?” Sam asked, knowing it was a dumb question - adults never believed in that sort of thing, and certainly not when coming from a kid.
Kade just shook his head.
“Kade! Lunch!” A woman’s voice called across the parking lot; Sam and Kade both turned to look.
“I should go,” Kade stood offering Sam a tiny, crooked smile.
Sam nodded and watched Kade go. There was so much he’d wanted to tell the other kid; about his dad and his brother and their life hunting ghosts (among other things), but he’d kept quiet. There was no use in promising Kade something he wasn’t sure he could deliver.
Sam sat for a few more minutes, feeling anxious, and unsettled, and confused about what to do next. He needed help, but for some reason the idea of talking to his dad about Kade’s situation only made Sam feel worse.
Beads of sweat rolled down Sam’s forehead, finally driving him back indoors to the relative comfort of the motel room A/C.
----
Recipient: AlexisJane
Rating: T
Words: ~8900
Warnings: some violence against children, child death (not Sam or Dean)
Author's Notes: Set sometime after 9.7 "Bad Boys" (flashbacks), but before 4.13 "After School Special" (flashbacks) ; Thank you truly to my very helpful beta!
Summary: Prompt: Young Sam thinks he found a case. John won't take him seriously but Dean does.
The swings were covered in a layer of dirt and grime, like no one had sat on their black, cracked seats in awhile. There were three swings, but one was broken so with a studied eye, Sam compared the remaining two before lowering himself onto the one that seemed slightly less dirty. As his weight settled he could feel absorbed heat radiate from the seat, through his jeans, warming his body on what was already a brutally hot day.
He’d woken up that morning in yet another no-name motel in yet another no-name town. It looked and felt just like the hundreds - maybe thousands - of other no-name motels Sam had been in over the years. The only difference this time was the presence of the playground. Though it was in disrepair, it was a welcome reprieve from the trappings of the motel room, seemingly identical to everywhere else they’d ever been - threadbare, stained carpet; hard, thin mattresses; lumpy pillows; moldy showers; static television reception; the just barely concealed scent of stale cigarette smoke.
It was August, and school should be starting again soon. For many reasons Sam didn’t enjoy summers like most other kids his age probably did; now that he and Dean were older their dad would take them on more hunts - which Dean loved, and Sam mostly hated. There was a brief moment, when his dad started teaching him to shoot, and began telling him about the various things they would hunt, that he felt excited and anxious to go out with Dean and their dad - but after his first hunt he lost a lot of that romanticism. It was bloody, and messy, and dangerous and Sam didn’t like how it made him feel; he didn’t like being “in on the secret” while everyone around him was oblivious; it made him feel even more apart from everyone else than he already did. And so he started to crave anything that made him feel “normal”, of which school was one.
For the last few years he spent much of his summers simply counting the days until he could feel that normalcy again. This year was no different; he should be starting the eighth grade. But he didn’t know where, and he didn’t know when and whenever Sam tried to ask his dad if he could look into registration for the school year, he would just offer a grunt and shrug his shoulders noncommittally while never answering the question.
Dean was no help either, shrugging his shoulders just like their dad would, but then offering a half apologetic smile. Sam knew Dean didn't like school; but he also knew Dean knew Sam did, there was just little either of them could do about it. It was just the way it was - and Sam thought sometimes their dad probably wished he didn’t need to put them in school at all. But Sam also knew eventually he would. He knew their dad would take a job in some town somewhere and make Sam and Dean enroll. They’d be starting late and they’d be behind but for Sam that was part of the joy. He felt a thrill at playing catch-up and trying to learn as much as he could as fast as he could. He just wanted that feeling back; he craved it, he was ready for it. Hunting never gave him the same joy. Not like he knew it did Dean.
Sam sighed dramatically into the oppressive heat, exhaling and blowing up into his overlong bangs. The soft breeze from his breath was relief against his damp forehead, his thick hair trapping the humid heat there. Sam could feel tiny droplets forming above his eyebrows. He needed a haircut, or at the very least he needed the long fringes of his bangs trimmed back to keep them from falling into his eyes, or more importantly to alleviate the discomfort of a hot and sweaty head.
Sighing again, Sam swatted at the flies buzzing around him, the rusty swing creaking beneath him. It really was a miracle some of the equipment in this tiny playground was still standing and intact, Sam thought as he looked around; there was a metal slide glinting in the afternoon sun (certainly unusable from the heat), a cracked and warped wooden see-saw (certain to give a person splinters just by looking at it), and monkey bars with posts rusted almost as bad as the thick metal legs of the swing set. Sam thought the swing set and the monkey bars might have been a matching red at one point, but it was almost impossible to tell anymore.
The edges of the playground along the fence line were showing signs of overgrowth, grasses and yellow-flowered weeds alive with bees were encroaching onto the gravelly substrate of the small play area. Sam wondered how much more neglect it would take before the little park ceased to be an escape for anyone anymore - he didn’t figure it would be long before it all just fell down and was overgrown.
Exhaling a long breath, Sam began to spin his swing in a tight circle, the rusted chains twisting above him as flakes of rust showered down; his feet kicking up a tiny cloud of gravelly dust as he toed at the ground. Round, and round again. When the swing was twisted tight as it could go Sam lifted his feet off the ground and let himself spin, the chains above him untwisting as more rust flakes fell, until finally the swing righted itself and he stilled.
Sighing again with mounting irritation and frustration, Sam looked up at the brilliant sky. It was so quiet - not a sound anywhere, except for the flies that wouldn’t leave him alone. Sam knew they were somewhere in the Midwest, exactly where he wasn’t sure as he’d been asleep when his dad had pulled into this place. What he did know was there was a lot of humidity; his hair was damp with it and again he thought how nice a haircut would be, wiping at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.
Looking around - beyond the edges of the playground - Sam saw the parking lot of the motel was mostly empty save a beater minivan (with Oklahoma plates), and his dad’s Impala. Maybe they were in Oklahoma? Sam thought before wishing he could muster the energy to care.
His dad and Dean were still asleep in the motel room. Sam had left them, the small window A/C unit blasting noisily, when he’d come outside. Or, maybe Dean was up now and cleaning his guns. Though Sam was pretty sure if either Dean or his dad were up they’d have come outside by now to find him. He could barely go anywhere without either his dad or his brother on him.
Suddenly a voice echoed from across the parking lot, catching Sam’s attention. He watched as a tall, thin blond woman led a blond-haired boy out of a room (on the other end of the strip of rooms from where their room was) and towards the beater minivan. The kid didn’t seem thrilled to be going wherever the woman (his mother maybe?) was taking him - he walked (limping slightly, Sam thought) with his head hung low and his arms crossed. Sam watched with detached interest as the van backfired when started, kicking out a cloud of black smoke before pulling out of the parking lot and onto the highway heading away from the motel.
Not moments later, Dean’s voice cut through the thick, humid air, calling Sam back inside.
----
Later that afternoon, their dad gave Sam and Dean the same lecture he always did every time he left for a hunt - the hunts he didn’t take them on anyway, and those were fewer and farther between as he and Dean got older - but the lecture was always the same, it hadn’t changed in years. No matter how old Sam and Dean were it was always their dad telling them: he wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone; they needed to be careful; Dean, watch out for your brother; Sam, don’t go anywhere without Dean; and so on and so on, blah blah blah.
He left soon after. Sam felt relief at his departure, but then immediately felt guilty for it. Dean, after he’d finished bitching about being left behind again, ordered a pizza and promptly ate half of it, also helping himself to a few of the beers their dad had left in the motel room fridge. Sam just picked at his dinner, feeling sweaty, and dirty, and just generally irritated. It was how he felt more often than not anymore, and he hated it. He wanted to believe there was more to life than what he was seeing; than what his dad was teaching him. He wanted to think he could do more than just live day to day, week to week, in crappy motel rooms. He had to know there was more to life than that. It was too depressing, otherwise.
Dean noisily smacked his lips, licking his fingers clean of pizza grease before he thumbed the button on the television remote.
“Sweet! The free HBO actually works here,” he grinned at Sam who was staring back at his brother with disdain; sometimes Dean could be so gross.
Nodding, Sam offered a forced half-smile back at his brother. But when Dean settled on watching a noisy, grotesque slasher-flick, Sam had to get out of the room. He wasn’t in the mood for the sights or the sounds and so he found himself wandering back out towards the swing set, but not before Dean had called after him to “stay close”.
The pamphlets in the motel room advertising local real estate and fast food joints told Sam they were on the far western outskirts of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the sun had already disappeared below the horizon as Sam closed the motel room door (but not before giving Dean a noncommittal affirmation that he wouldn’t wander far). The air was only slightly less hot than earlier, but just as humid, and a thin sheen of sweat quickly formed on his forehead. Sam could see the lone light in the parking lot, seeming to float roughly 15 feet above the edge of the playground - moths and various other flying insects swarming in its glow. It didn’t do much for lighting the parking lot, but it was enough for Sam to see to make his way by.
His shoes were silent on the asphalt of the parking lot, and he wasn’t sure it was only his imagination that with each step there seemed to be a slight “bounce” to the ground; the asphalt soft and pliable beneath him - melted a bit, he thought.
It wasn’t until he was almost to the short fence that surrounded the motel playground that he noticed there was already someone there; it was the blond kid from earlier, swinging lazily on one of the two intact swings. Sam paused just short of the fence and the reach of the illumination of the lone light. It took him only a brief moment to determine he wasn’t in the mood to be friendly to the strange kid, so Sam started to turn away. That was when the kid actually called out to him.
“You can come in,” he said, “it’s a free country ya know.”
“I know,” Sam grumbled under his breath as he turned back, pausing just one more moment before crossing through the opening in the low fence and sitting down on the second swing. The third swing hung from only one chain, moving listlessly in the mild evening breeze, creaking and squeaking ever so slightly as it swayed.
“I’m Kade,” the kid said.
“Sam.”
The kid nodded and a silence fell between them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but when the mosquitos started swarming, Sam started to slowly swing back and forth, noticing Kade following suit. For the next ten minutes or so, the two of them swung back and forth, the creaking and groaning and constant shower of rusty flakes from the swing set causing no alarm to rise in their minds.
What finally made them both cease was the blond woman, appearing outside and yelling for Kade to come in.
Sam stopped pumping his legs and let himself slowly drift to a stop. Kade did the same.
“That’s my mom.”
Sam nodded.
“So, I’ll see ya ‘round,” Kade said as he stood.
“Yeah, see ya,” Sam replied, pushing his damp hair back from his sweaty face, his hand dirty with rust and grime, and watching Kade head towards his mother, a slight limp in his step.
----
The following morning, Sam woke up to find their dad back. He was slumped over and snoring lightly in the worn armchair in the far corner of the room. Looking across at the other bed Sam saw Dean, also still asleep. The clock on the nightstand between them glowed in bright red numbers, 6:43 AM.
As quietly as he could, Sam climbed from bed and set out to make breakfast. Thankfully, there were a few groceries in the fridge, specifically some eggs and milk. The scent of the eggs cooking soon had Dean and his dad stirring, but when Sam started brewing the coffee, both got right up, bleary-eyed though they were.
Over breakfast their dad told them about the job. A straight-forward poltergeist haunting, he said. Dean begged to go along, but their dad refused him, telling him to just stay with Sam, that he’d be able to finish the job quicker if he just worked it alone.
“It shouldn’t be more than another day or so,” he’d added when Dean began to argue.
“But-,” Dean began, but was cut off.
“No, Dean. Just watch out for your brother,” their dad growled and Dean huffed.
Sam wanted to tell his dad he didn’t need babysitting by his older brother; he was old enough to stay by himself and if Dean wanted to go he should, but he knew it would do no good. His dad would only get mad and then there’d be an argument and really there was no reason to borrow trouble. So, Sam remained silent, Dean sulked, and their dad left without anything more to say on the subject.
A few hours later, Sam was back out at the playground. Dean had left, walking down the street to the gas station for a few more provisions, making Sam promise not to leave the motel room until he got back. The moment Dean was out of sight, though, Sam was out the door and into the sun - brutal and hot though it was - because anything was better than staring at the walls of that room. They felt confining, like they were closing in on Sam intending to trap him there, in the life they emulated, forever. At least outside there was fresh air, and space, and semblance of normalcy, temporary though it might be. There were no piles of guns on the table to be cleaned, or bloody clothes to be washed up and patched. There was just…youth, and freedom - even if the freedom was really just an illusion.
Not too long after Sam sat on the swing, Kade appeared. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before - but then again, so was Sam.
“Hey,” Sam said and Kade offered a tight smile.
“Hi,” he responded, moving slowly and sitting down on the other swing.
Sam felt beads of sweat that had been forming at his hairline start to move slowly down his forehead, and he shook his head gently, annoyed. The beads fell, dripping into his eyes and onto his nose and with a soft sigh Sam wiped them away.
“So do you live here or something?” Sam asked, turning to Kade, intent to do more than just swing in silence.
“Nah,” Kade answered, “Omaha.”
“Oh,” Sam nodded, pumping his legs just enough to gain some momentum and with it some slight relief, a soft breeze associated with his movement.
“Are you on vacation?” Sam asked after a bit.
“No,” Kade replied, but he didn’t elaborate and Sam didn’t push for more.
They swung back and forth for a while, until Sam saw Dean appear around the corner of the motel into the parking lot, carrying two plastic bags that appeared to be bursting. Sam watched his brother’s easy expression harden when he saw him.
“Shit,” Sam sighed and when Kade looked at him questioningly he nodded towards Dean’s approaching figure.
“My brother,” Sam elaborated, “I wasn’t supposed to leave the motel room.”
Kade didn’t respond, but Sam saw him level a narrowed gaze at Dean.
“Sammy,” Dean was at the fence now, and his tone was laced with warning.
“I know, okay?” Sam sighed. “I got bored. And that room is ugly and uncomfortable.”
Dean shook his head, but the disapproving look on his face softened somewhat.
“Just-,” his eyes darted between Sam and Kade, “be careful, okay? Don’t go anywhere else?”
Sam grinned and when Dean rolled his eyes and started towards their motel room, Sam gave a soft laugh.
“That was weird,” Kade said, causing Sam to laugh again.
“My brother is weird,” Sam replied, wishing Kade could understand even a little how true that observation really was.
“Let’s see who can jump the farthest,” Sam said, suddenly energized despite the heat, pumping his legs rapidly and rising quickly into the air.
When he felt he was as high as he could get and when the swing was at its apex Sam launched himself into the air, flying for just the briefest of moments before landing on his feet with a loud grunting exhale. His momentum continued to carry him forward though, and he ended up on his hands and knees. The deep gravel substrate of the playground had somewhat lessened the impact, but not so much that Sam didn’t feel it travel through his body, reverberating in his bones. It wasn’t painful, rather it was invigorating and Sam felt truly alive. Twisting around, he sat back on his rear and beckoned Kade with his hands.
“C’mon!”
The blond boy swung back and forth a few more times before releasing, landing just a foot or so short of where Sam sat.
“Yes!” Sam exclaimed with both arms reaching towards the sky, “I win!”
Kade looked up from where he was crouched in the gravel, on his hands and knees as Sam had been after he’d jumped. But something in the look on his face dissipated all the joy from Sam’s body.
“What?” Sam sat up straight, his senses attuned to the fact that something wasn’t right.
“I just-,” Kade gasped, breathless, “it hurts is all.”
“What hurts? Where?” Sam crab-crawled towards Kade, suddenly frightened that he’d goaded his new…friend?...into jumping off a swing and breaking his leg, or something worse.
Kade sat back on his butt. With a look at Sam he then pulled up the leg of his jeans exposing a giant bruise, covering almost his entire calf. It was a deep, dark black, with slight purpling on the edges. It looked very fresh and suddenly it made sense why Kade had looked to be limping the night before, and why he was wearing long pants on such a hot summer day. Not that Sam would have even questioned it, after all he was wearing jeans too, but that was simply because Sam owned no shorts. There was no room for exposed skin in hunting.
“Holy…,” Sam whispered, his voice fading.
Kade sighed heavily.
“It’s why my mom brought me here,” he said, pulling his pant leg back down and hiding the awful bruise from sight.
“She thinks it was my dad. That he hit me. Even though I told her a thousand times it wasn’t.”
“Um,” Sam bit his lower lip, unsure of what to say in response. “Are you sure it wasn’t?”
Kade narrowed his eyes at Sam, “Yeah, I’m sure. I think I would know. He might get mad and yell sometimes, but he doesn’t hit me. And besides, all dads yell.”
“Yeah. My dad yells sometimes too,” Sam offered his agreement and Kade’s expression cleared some.
“But my dad didn’t do it,” Kade reiterated.
“Then what happened? Why doesn’t your mom believe you?” Sam asked, brushing his hair back from his sweaty face.
Kade glanced over his shoulder towards where the beater minivan was parked, before turning back to face Sam. He breathed in deeply then raised the hem of his t-shirt, revealing another large bruise around his ribcage, only this one looked a few days older - it had a lot more green and yellow at the edges, the middle a more bluish-purple - not the deep purplish-black like the leg bruise had been.
Sam raised his eyebrows at Kade, who dropped his shirt and proceeded to pull up his left sleeve, revealing a third bruise, this one in the very distinct shape of a hand. It, too, was somewhat faded, but still looked really painful.
“She just doesn’t believe me,” Kade said.
“But why not?” Sam pressed, the hunter instinct inside him thrumming, unbidden though it was. If it wasn’t his dad…
“She just doesn’t, okay,” Kade said, his tone more aloof; defensive even.
“But someone is hurting you,” Sam said slowly, cautiously. His instincts that this was possibly something supernatural growing stronger, even as he wished it wouldn’t be true. Surely if it were a person, another kid or something, Kade would gladly tell someone.
Kade shrugged, and Sam sighed inwardly.
“It doesn’t matter. Just forget it,” Kade stood slowly, and Sam followed suit.
“You can tell me,” Sam said softly.
Kade looked at him, and Sam could see him debating with himself.
“You won’t believe me,” Kade finally said, brushing his jeans of the gravel dust that had accumulated. Sam could see him wincing as his hand touched the bruised leg.
“I will believe you,” Sam said as earnestly as he could, “I swear.”
Kade’s pale blue eyes stared at Sam for what felt like an eternity before he sighed.
“I think my house is haunted,” he started and Sam sighed inwardly. Even as he’d sensed it would be, he had also hoped it wasn’t going to be something supernatural.
“Aren’t you gonna laugh?” Kade said then, his voice quiet.
Sam shook his head, “I said I’d believe you. And I do. I’ve-,” he paused and considered how much to tell the other kid, finally settling on ‘as little as possible’, “I’ve seen ghosts before.”
Kade looked at him, some doubt in his expression.
“Oh,” he finally replied. “Um, have you ever seen ghosts that hurt people?”
Sam nodded slowly and he saw a wave of relief wash over Kade’s face.
Still, flashbacks of his first hunt - the ghost of a woman who’d been burned alive by her husband - playing in his head. Three people had died before Sam, Dean, and their dad had been able to find her remains (a lock of her hair, from when she was a baby, stored in a locket worn by the woman's mother) and destroy them.
“There’s a ghost of a kid in my house, and he shows up at night and hits me with a baseball bat,” Kade’s expression was desperate, pained.
“It started about a week after we moved to Omaha from Oklahoma,” Kade moved to sit on the swings, and Sam followed.
Toeing at the dusty gravel beneath the swing, Kade stared at his feet as he talked. Sam didn’t interrupt him, listening intently to gather any clues. This was his first time learning of a real case, all on his own, and even though everything in his body told him he had to get away from his dad and hunting as soon as he possibly could, he also couldn’t ignore the fact that Kade needed help. What he was dealing with was not fair, and dangerous, and Sam was compelled to help, regardless of how he felt about hunting.
As Kade told it, he and his parents had just moved to Omaha from Oklahoma, and it had been just after their first week in the house that things had started happening. He’d awoken to find a pale-faced, angry boy standing over him with a baseball bat in his hands. He had swung it once and hit Kade in the side before he’d disappeared. If not for the immense pain of the attack, Kade had told Sam, he would have thought what he’d seen had just been a bad dream.
Kade didn’t tell his mom or his dad about what had happened, and had done his best to hide the bruise that appeared the next morning. Two nights later the kid showed up again, swinging at Kade’s shoulders. The next night he was there again, taking aim at Kade legs.
The angry kid, the boy, didn’t appear with any sort of regularity or reason, and Kade didn’t know what to make of his presence at all. He had never really believed in ghosts, but now there was one, and it was hurting him, and he didn’t know what to do about it - all he knew was no matter where in the house he slept, the kid always seemed to find him. He was terrified to go to sleep, and growing anxious and weary and his mother was starting to notice. Kade could see her watching him and it made all the stress of the situation even worse.
The first time his mother saw the bruising though, Kade had been able to explain it away. He had fallen off his bike, he’d said. But when the handprint bruise appeared a few days later she grew suspicious and started asking more specific questions about who he played with in the neighborhood, and about his dad.
Then, a few nights after that Kade and his dad had had a big fight over Kade playing baseball (Kade didn’t want to - he never wanted to see another baseball bat for as long as he lived) and the lady who lived next door had wasted no time coming over later to tell his mom about the fight. The following morning was when the calf bruise showed up and there was nothing Kade could say to convince his mom that it hadn’t been his dad hurting him.
Then, while his dad had been gone at work, she had packed up the old minivan and they’d left.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” Kade said, “but I do know we aren’t going home, and we aren’t staying here.”
“Have you tried telling your mom about the ghost?” Sam asked, knowing it was a dumb question - adults never believed in that sort of thing, and certainly not when coming from a kid.
Kade just shook his head.
“Kade! Lunch!” A woman’s voice called across the parking lot; Sam and Kade both turned to look.
“I should go,” Kade stood offering Sam a tiny, crooked smile.
Sam nodded and watched Kade go. There was so much he’d wanted to tell the other kid; about his dad and his brother and their life hunting ghosts (among other things), but he’d kept quiet. There was no use in promising Kade something he wasn’t sure he could deliver.
Sam sat for a few more minutes, feeling anxious, and unsettled, and confused about what to do next. He needed help, but for some reason the idea of talking to his dad about Kade’s situation only made Sam feel worse.
Beads of sweat rolled down Sam’s forehead, finally driving him back indoors to the relative comfort of the motel room A/C.
----