Chapter Text
Dad only really hits Sam once.
In Liberty, New York, fall is coming in off the mountains. The leaves are peeling from the trees in flurries of oranges, browns. Here, the woods are dark and wet.
Sam is 12 years old. Dean, 3 months away from 17, has been missing for two days. He’s never run away before, but Dad, fresh from a hunt in the town over, is bruised in washes of blush purple. He, older, wiser, insistent on Dean’s newfound and imagined teenage rebellion, is unconcerned.
Going through Dean’s things, sunlight shattered into fragments against the blinds on the green carpet, and there’s something loose and empty in Sam’s chest. Dean never lets Sam look through his duffle, and there are receipts for fast food, gas stations, DVD rentals stuffed into the corners, change rattling through the bottom of the bag, socks graying with use bundled into pairs, and a brown leather bound notebook, worn into tan around the spine.
Dean never lets Sam look through his duffle, but then again, Dean’s never left Sam. There’s a first time for everything.
On the first page of Sam’s brother’s journal is his brother’s name in his brother's handwriting. The second page is blank. The third is a lazy attempt at notes for what looks like history class, doodles of the car scribbled in the margins, the fourth is a grocery list for peanut butter and bread and boxed mac n cheese and the total of what it will cost. On the fifth, Sam’s brother has drawn a portrait of their father. In the drawing, his father is a smear of pen ink against the glow of the sky through the frame of the motel room door, he is broad shouldered and hulking a piercing in the night. He’s a good artist. Sam knows that at North Fork Middle, he was sweet on his art teacher and showed up to every single class. On the sixth, Dean’s drawn the church that sat opposite of the trailer they stayed in in south Oregon, and there’s a postcard from Washington state pinned in between the pages. Dean likes sevens, always has, and Sam knows this. On that page, his brother has finally started to write.
Staying in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. There’s some sort of water wraith down in Lake Sumner. Dad’s taken the car, so every day when I pick up Sam to walk him home I have to cut through this huge farm to get to the middle school. Dad didn’t leave enough money again, but I’m picking up shifts at the diner down the street from the motel to cover the difference. It’s fine. Sam likes to sit at the bar and read. School is shit. It’s hot as hell. There’s nothing to do in this stupid town but think.
On Monday, Dean is still missing and Dad is still unbothered but getting angrier; according to him, Dean’s drunk somewhere with a girl, too wasted to remember condoms or monster killing, father’s or stick-in-the-mud kid brothers. According to him, Dean will come slinking back into their motel room eventually, sorry and sheepish, pick the lock and sit on the bed, waiting for Sam to return from school and for Dad to stumble back from whatever haunt he was chasing.
Sam isn’t sure. Dean’s never done this before. He wouldn’t just leave, because Dean still insists on walking the 40 minutes from school to the motel with Sam even though he’s 12, not 6. Sam had waited outside the middle school for Dean to lope from the sharp shadow of the high school building until his math teacher, Mrs. Pickett brought him inside to call his dad. And Dean may be teenaged, may be affectless and impulsive, but he’s not flaky, not with brothers or fathers. They can’t afford it, not with CPS breathing down their necks after Virginia, not with Dad’s crusade, Sam’s dependence– here, he’s got no one. In Virginia, Sam had made the fall musical. He was going to try out for soccer. In Liberty, Sam’s got nothing– no clubs, after school activities, friends. Dean is smart. He’s dependable and always shows up on time and is sorry for the move. Sam knows he knows better, but Dad doesn’t seem to care.
Sam’s sat outside of Liberty Middle, counting cracks, waiting for Dad to swing by in the car and turn heads with the rumble of the engine, dark eyes and jacket. He’s borrowed Dean’s hoodie for the time being, can feel the weight of the cold and Mrs. Pickett from her classroom’s first floor window, and Emi Furuta is stalking from the high school car rider’s line to Sam sitting on the curb. She’s Dean’s friend, kind of. Dean is only ever really kind of friends with girls. Guys don’t like him for reasons that are past Sam, but Dad seems to think it's something to do with girlfriends and teenage hormones, with his brother being a “lady killer” and “handsome kid”, but Sam knows this it’s probably just ‘cause Dean thinks girls are cool. Emi Furuta is a cool girl. She wears dark smears of makeup beneath her eyes, large black boots and low cut tops in dark colors, she wears long strings of pearls and costume jewelry, pins safety pin buttons to her black coat. She has a sister in 8th grade, Kira, who is the only kid in all of Liberty Middle who has dyed pink hair, who the boys in Sam’s grade who play four square at recess call queen freak. Dean doesn’t talk about Emi, but Sam’s seen the two of them disappear into the swaths of privet behind the school to smoke weed from Pickett’s classroom.
“You’re Dean Winchester’s brother, right?” She’s fiddling with one of her necklaces. She’s biting at her lip. Her hair is shiny and black.
“Yeah,” Sam says, looking down. He reaches down to snatch a leaf from the pavement and begins to tear it into pieces. Emi is silent. He looks back up. “Why?”
“Um. Is he sick? We were supposed to hang out today during 2nd period and he just totally bailed.”
Sam is sure hanging means smoking him out, but he doesn’t mind. If Emi’s a cool girl, Dean’s a cool guy. The coolest. He’s tall and handsome and good with his hands, he’s stronger than Sam by a mile. He never cries, not even when Dad’s spitting vitriol, and he’s always trying to get Sam to laugh. He doesn’t often have friends, but when he does he makes sure Sam can come with if there isn’t anything dangerous or too mature going on. And he’s always friends with kids like Emi– Dean collects freaks like strays. He’d be popular if he tried. Sam’s sure.
“I don’t know.”
“What does that even mean?”
Sam glares.
“Leave it alone.”
Emi crosses her arms. She scoffs when Sam stands up to move.
“I literally just asked if he was sick. No reason to get pissy.”
Sam shuts his eyes. In Virginia, he had a best friend. He’d never had a best friend before, but Frankie lived next door to the house Dad rented for those six weeks and would come over every day after school to finish homework and read comics and play video games on the Atari his older sister stole. Frankie always brought dinner over, too. His mom was apparently always making too much food, having recently divorced, but was always happy to share even when Dean, blushing, would refuse. In Virginia, Dean sat in the living room and watched TV, and sometimes would drive the two of them around town or get DQ or something. In Virginia, Dean was there, and he always picked Sam up from school.
Sam suddenly feels very hot. His throat hurts. It’s only as he watches Emi’s face begin to crumple into sympathy that he realizes he’s crying. He wipes angrily at his cheeks, feeling flushed and horrified. He can’t help it– he’s the emotional one. He’s the one who didn’t learn to fire a gun ‘til 9, and even then the recoil had scared him so bad he waited 6 months to try again. The first time he’d seen Dean hurt and known that it was from, he’d cried himself to sleep.
“Everything okay?”
It’s Mrs. Picket, having slinked out from her classroom to the parking lot. She’s a good enough teacher, but she’s got this nasally voice and huge glasses that take up her whole face, and she’s the type of old lady Dean would call a bag of bones , which is to say that she’s close to ancient, probably. She puts her hand on Sam’s shoulder, mouth pursed and eyeing Emi. Sam stiffens.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. He hopes his face is dry. Mrs. Picket is nice enough to be nosy. So nice she could create trouble. “Emi is picking me up so me and Kira can have a playdate.” He fixes his face into a smile because Mrs. Picket is also the type of old lady to be convinced by some dimples.
“Yep,” Emi deadpans from behind him. He can hear her keys jingling as she holds them up. “We’re waiting for her. She has a meeting with some teacher. I don’t know.”
Mrs. Picket glances at the doors of the school. She sort of half shrugs, pats Sam’s shoulder and smiles down.
“Alright. Have fun, Sam!” She nods at Emi. “And good to see you too, Miss Furuta.” And she’s not mean or anything. She even smells like lemons, which isn’t an old lady smell. She just cares too much.
“C’mon,” Emi says, shouldering her bag. She’s sewn a patch on it that says TWO WITCHES in spidery font. “Kira’s in the car, if you care. I’ll give you a ride.”
Sam follows. Dad’s not coming. Mrs. Pickett is still watching. Sam’s a smart kid, everyone says so. There are things he just knows.
“Is he really sick or something?” Emi asks him, whipping her head around to check for cars as they cut through the parking lot. “Why’d you start crying? I saw you.”
Sam looks down at his shoes. That loose, empty feeling is back. The lump in the back of his throat.
“He’s missing,” he says miserably, and Emi stops where she is to stare.
The Furuta’s house is behind the one pharmacy in town. In the yard, Sam compliments the flowers growing along the picket fence and Kira explains that they’re her father’s. Kira’s 14. Kira talks in fragments, like her brain is working in stops and starts. Kira’s the oldest girl in the 8th grade, Kira has adopted her older sister’s style in a childlike, girlish way, Kira wears stacks of bracelets, has pink hair, and already wears lots of heavy makeup and a little silver rosary that hangs down to her navel. Emi’s cooler, probably, but Kira’s fun. Once inside, Emi instructs Sam to take off his shoes and sits him down at the card table in the corner of the kitchen.
“So,” Emi starts. She goes to the sink and begins to fill a cup with water. “What do you mean missing? ”
Sam shrugs. There’s a part of the table splintering up, and he desperately wants to pick at it, but instead resolves to smooth his hands against his pants.
“I just don’t know where he is.”
“Since when?”
“Friday. After school. It’s okay, though,” Sam insists. “My dad knows and everything.”
“That’s more than enough time to have called the police, right?”
Sam looks down.
“We can’t call the police.”
Emi and Kira make eye contact. Kira boosts herself up onto the counter to sit.
“Why not?”
“We just can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s just not gonna happen, okay?”
“Why?”
Sam takes a deep breath. His face feels flushed and hot again.
“CPS,” he says. He gives in and begins to pick at the table.
Sam can hear the heat click on. Emi goes to stand on the grate. She is wearing striped socks with a hole in the toe.
“Well,” Kira says. She shrugs. “We can look, can’t we?”
Emi scoffs. Crosses her arms.
“Sure,” she says, tipping back the rest of the water in her glass. “Why not.”