"What should we do?"
The kid was gone. Even with a bullet in his leg, his escape had been easily executed. Dean's low whistle and sigh was the only sound in the completely dead night. He absentmindedly rubbed the reddening marks on his throat.
"Damn."
"We can still find him."
The older brother sank onto the cold park bench dotted with dew, careful to avoid the ice cream splatter.
"How d'you figure?" He challenged. "Do you have any idea where he's going now?"
Sam almost laughed. "Dean, we know where he lives. When have we ever had that advantage?"
Dean shrugged. "How much of an advantage is it gonna be if he's not even there? I don't really know the kid, but he seems to be going through a rebellious stage. Might not make it home for curfew, y'know, that sort of thing."
Sam sighed and nodded. "Yeah, okay. What time is it, anyway?"
"11.42. Better get moving."
"Mm." Sam agreed. "Plan of attack?"
"Well, I'm not sure how well the 'if I was a teenage shapeshifter' approach will go down," Dean mused. "We need a better reading on his motives."
"Now?" Sam asked. "At a quarter to midnight? Dean, let's just pick this up again in the morning."
"No way, he knows we're after him. If we back off now we're giving him a head-start." Dean reasoned. "Anyway, if we're right about this, the sooner we get this job done, the sooner these," he gestured at the two of them, small frames in awkward proportions "will once again be history."
Sam sighed and nodded. It was frustrating when Dean was right, and even though Sam would swear it was because he wasn't used to it happening, that wasn't true. And although there wasn't much else he wanted to do more than go home and sleep - or even curl up right on the park bench and sleep there - he knew that if they let Tanner escape tonight, they let him escape for good.
"Alright." He agreed. "How do you wanna do this? Interrogate the parents?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, that's a great idea. I'm gonna leave that one up to you though, alright?"
"What? Why?"
"Well, it's just that you're so…" Dean surveyed Sam, trying to come up with an appropriate adjective. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth "…little and cute."
"Dammit, Dean. Not helping."
"No, really. Come on, think about it. These nice people don't want a rebellious, unruly teenager knocking on their door at this time of night."
Sam cocked an eyebrow. "You?"
"Apparently." Dean shrugged. "So go. I'll keep looking for boy wonder."
---
The blunt knocking sound produced by Sam's little fist against the soft, damp wood of the rotting door was far louder than he had anticipated. Could have had something to do with the birds even having retired for the night, but Sam drew his hand back quickly, in any case. He realized how silly this reaction was; his intention was to wake the parents, yet his first instinct was to hope the noise didn't wake the parents. In fact, after a minute or two which contained no windows flushing with light nor the sound of bedsprings and cursewords from deep within the tiny dwelling, Sam raised his fist and pounded harder.
And then again.
And then again.
And one more time.
Mr. & Mrs. Tanner's Parents were hard sleepers, Sam concluded after ten minutes of beating the door's wet, rotting wood to a pulp. He stepped down the one step which set him on the cluttered & mossy concrete path that led around to the back of the house. Sam allowed himself one casual glance behind him as if he was looking for his ride, then once he was satisfied that none of the surrounding neighbors had been disturbed by his impression of a battering ram, he rounded the corner of the house.
Not surprisingly, Sam found that 5'1 was a much preferable height to well over six feet when it came to slipping into stealth mode. He repeated the noble art of breaking and entering just as he had done on hundreds of different occasions, on hundreds of different hunts, only this time - he realized as he neared the window which had a few Metallica stickers stuck on the pane - what he now gained in secret-squirrel-skills, he lost in reaching-a-high-window skills.
He also wondered where one could possibly buy Metallica stickers, and whether the manufacturers realized they were aiming at two very different target audiences.
After a little while digging around in the mess of gardening and toolshed objects which littered neither the garden nor the toolshed, Sam found a bucket which looked sturdy enough to stand on -- minus all the midnight snails which were decorating the inside. He picked them out and turned the bucket upside down under Tanners window, stepping onto it. It was a mild improvement.
The latch on Tanner's window was broken (it seemed like everything in, on or around this house was rotting, breaking or broken) and Sam swung the window neatly open and scrambled in.
---
It was the sixth bar Dean had searched, and the first which didn't turn him away. Unfortunately, it was also the seediest by far. Sam's comment about 'if he were an adult, we wouldn't find it strange if he went into a bar' had prompted him to start away from the residential area and work his way in. He had, though, somehow forgotten his predicament in the excitement and at first been rather confused when the bartender had asked to see his ID.
But sixth times the charm, as they never say, and now the whoreish barmaid was lolling like a loose tongue in the seventh hour of her night shift and Dean had no fear of being thrown out onto the curb. She leaned on the counter, funbags huddled together atop her medieval-style square-neck as if she wasn't already enough of a target. She seemed barely aware of the cigarette slowly wilting away in her right hand, though she waved it side to side in a hypnotizingly dream-like motion. The neon sign behind Dean tinted her nylon blonde hair pink and blue as she leaned further forward and murmured with what sounded like a mouth full of syrup and sugar; "What's a nice boy doing in a place like this?"
"I'm looking for someone." Dean said, as direct as possible, but his eyes were magnetized toward the small cigarette end burning bright and waving back and forth, and back and forth.
"You, angel face? Baby boy? In my bar?" She said to Dean. "You'd best not even dream of it, you would. Sweet boy like you."
Dean blinked away from the swaying red moon-on-fire and raised an indignant hand to his face, knowing he would feel smooth, young skin and a thin jaw, and getting only that. He didn't remember the last time someone had said something so pet-like to him. Pretty boy, was what she was saying. Pretty boy in my bar. You ain't got no scars, Dean Winchester. None yet.
"I'm looking for a kid. A boy. About fourteen years old." He told her, now watching the rising smoke from her little red moon, making its orbits. "Has he been in here tonight?"
"No, hun, no children allowed in my bar. Fourteen? No, hun. Not tonight."
Dean was silent for a moment, pondering the last thing she said. Not tonight?
"Why don't you tell me his name, love?" She suggested. "Tell me his name, I might know him."
Dean searched through his memory. Sam was the one good with names.
"Tanner." He said eventually. "His name's Tanner."
"Tanner." She repeated, staring into the neon-lit otherwise-darkness. "Kid's in a band?"
Dean nodded.
"Kid plays in a band." She self-affirmed. "Yeah, I know him. Mighta played here a couple times, I don't know, could lose my liquor license, I can't quite remember."
Now he was getting somewhere. "Does he come in here often? Where else does he go?"
"Might come in here, I don't know." The barmaid wove her cryptic web as if she thought she was a master. "Comes in here before going off to the underpass, he might do. God knows what he does there. Never has a drink though, I don't allow children to drink in my bar."
"The underpass?" Dean asked. "Does he ever have anything with him? Maybe a… a paper bag with something in it or..."
"He's got that backpack." She confirmed. "Never seen what's in it, can't imagine it would be anything of interest to the likes of you and me, angel."
"Yeah, trading cards, I'm sure." Dean quipped. He spun on the barstool, having gotten everything he needed, and sauntered away from the degradation, the dream and the little red moon.