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Patience isn't exactly Dean's strong point.
"If we go right now--"
"No."
"They'll be looking for us later."
"They're looking for us now," Sam points out, adopting his speak-very-slowly-so-the-dumb-kid-can-understand voice that he knows Dean hates so much. "If we waltz into the impound lot with fake badges and forged papers, we'll both be back in handcuffs before you can say 'worst idea ever.'"
"You have a better idea, Einstein? 'Cause it's not like they're going to stop looking for us," Dean says. Then he adds, with more than a touch of pride in his voice, "We're fugitives from the law."
"You don't have to sound so happy about it. And yes," Sam replies, "I do have a better idea. We lie low today and go in tonight."
Dean shoots him an amused sidelong glance. "That's your plan?"
"Look, there'll be security, but even with alarms and cameras and--"
"Sure, whatever. You just like pretending to be a professional thief," Dean says. "You like to pretend you're those guys from Ocean's Eleven."
"I do not." Man, if they had gear like that, the things they could do…. "I just think it's safer--"
"Do too."
"Do not. Look, I just think--"
"You have diagrams of alarm circuitry memorized."
"So do you." Dean's the one who taught him all that in the first place, and it's not like the knowledge hasn't come in handy from time to time.
"You made us buy rappelling equipment."
The rappelling equipment is awesome and Dean knows it, but it, along with everything else they own, is currently in police custody, likely never to be seen again. "Focus, Dean. We need to--"
"You even own a black ski mask."
"Fine." Sam scowls and kicks at the dirt road; it seems like they've already been walking forever, and they're still in the middle of nowhere. "Get your damn car back by yourself. When you get arrested again, I'll just let you go to prison."
"I won't get caught."
"Be careful in the showers."
"It's just an impound lot, not Fort Knox. Piece of cake."
"Don't drop the soap."
They walk in silence for several minutes. The morning is cold but sunny, full of twittering birds and crackling leaves. The sound of distant sirens echoes through the air, and they quicken their pace just a bit.
"Lie low until night?" Dean says finally, and Sam hides a smile of triumph. "Boy, that sounds like a blast."
"It won't be so bad. Besides, we need some supplies, so we can--"
"We can go to the aquarium."
"Dean." Sam shakes his head. "The whole purpose of lying low is to be someplace where the cops won't find us."
"They won't be looking for dangerous fugitives at the aquarium," Dean says with absolute certainty.
"It's a busy place, in public, in the middle of the day--"
"I've always wanted to see the aquarium."
Sam stops short. "You have?"
Dean keeps walking along the narrow dirt road, doesn't even look back. "I like sharks."
"We can't go to the aquarium," Sam says, even though he likes sharks too. He jogs a few steps to catch up. "It's too dangerous."
"They keep the sharks in tanks, Sammy. It's perfectly safe."
-
The best way to do it is to walk right in, business hours and broad daylight, and act like you own the place. Flash a badge, flirt with the secretary, spend a few minutes engaging in friendly blue-collar commiseration with the guard. Check the local sports scores before you head in; it gives you something normal to chat about, something ordinary and unsuspicious.
Show them the forged paperwork and don't be weird about it. If they notice you're acting funny they'll look a little closer at the seals and signatures, names and numbers. Trouble is, you can never think of everything, no matter how many hours and quarters you spend at Kinko's, so it's better not to give them reason to notice.
Play it right and you can give them a requisition issued by D.A. Donald Duck and signed by Judge John Lennon and they won't even blink. People see what they want to see.
One more thing: don't ask for what you want. You don't need them to hand it over with a red bow on top; you just need for them to look the other way.
-
They go to the aquarium.
Sam insists that they go to a hardware store first to pick up what they need for an exciting night of breaking into and entering a police impound lot. He has a little bit of cash in his pocket, so he buys a few things while Dean shoplifts the rest, including a bright orange Orioles hat that he plunks on his head and pulls low over his eyes, making a pretty effective transformation from "that fugitive guy on the news" to "sketchy but unremarkable hoodlum you'd never let your daughter date."
It ain't much, but it works, and when they head back out onto the street Sam feels edgy and apprehensive because now he's the conspicuous one. He tries to make himself smaller, tries to look respectable despite the fact that he hasn't changed or bathed in two days, tries to pretend the bag he's carrying isn't full of tools for illegal activities.
"If you didn't act so suspicious," Dean hisses to him as they board a city bus to head downtown, "nobody would suspect you of anything."
"Bite me," Sam whispers in return. He silently thanks the California Department of Motor Vehicles for having such a godawful, unrecognizable picture of him on file.
The aquarium is overrun with field trip groups of screaming children and frazzled teachers, and the few security guards he sees are far too busy keeping hyperactive fifth graders from feeding their friends to the giant turtles to worry about a couple of ordinary guys wandering around.
Sam is about ninety percent sure that Dean was kidding about always wanting to visit the Baltimore aquarium, but Dean really does drag him to see every critter in the place, even the boring ones like anemones waving lazily in small, dark tanks. Dean spends a good fifteen minutes trying to decide if the sand tiger shark looks more like a Charlie Watts or a Keith Moon, asks for an electric eel for his birthday, scribbles down the scientific names of poisonous frogs on the back of their ticket stubs ("Might come in handy some day," he explains, and Sam can't argue with that), and double-dog dares Sam to walk through the gift shop making dolphin noises.
Sam refuses that dare, but he does accept the one to pretend to be a giant octopus in full view of an entire horde of giggling third graders. Fifteen seconds of humiliating interpretive octopus dance and Dean's stuck doing laundry for the next six weeks -- not a bad trade, in Sam's opinion.
Nobody looks at them funny (except the octopus kids, who have a good reason). Nobody asks them if they're those dangerous fugitives from the news. Nobody screams, "Murderer!" and starts a riot. Nobody herds their children away or shouts for security or grabs their cell phones to dial 9-1-1.
Nobody pays them any attention at all, except for the octopus kids and one blonde, pigtailed five-year-old with sticky red lollypop all over her face who marches up to Sam and demands that he marry her right there in front of the jellyfish.
He politely declines the proposal, smiles when the girl's mom tries to apologize, and spends the rest of the afternoon listening to Dean cackle in amusement as he asks if the happy couple has set a date or picked out their china or made their Disney World honeymoon reservations yet.
"I told you so," Dean says as they're leaving.
"Told me what?"
"The best place to hide is in plain sight."
"Maybe." No sense in letting it go to Dean's head. "But you still look like a gigantic dork in that hat."
Dean only smiles.
It's really not that bad, Sam decides, being a fugitive from the law.
-
The best way to do it is in the middle of the night, just long enough after the shift begins that the security guards are getting a little bored of staring at their row of black-and-white TV screens. Jump the fence, stay in the shadows, split up. No matter how many lights and cameras there are in a place, there are never enough. You've got the shadows on your side.
Do some looking around, but don't be slow about it. Chances are there's only one way out if you've got four wheels, but that doesn't mean there's only one way to get there. There are always going to be guards on duty. Guards are people, and people are unpredictable, so you can't plan for everything. Keep it simple: find the goods, find the keys, distract the guards, bypass the alarm, get the hell out of Dodge.
Play it right and you can drive right out the front gate like you own the place, nobody seeing a thing, and vanish into the city streets before the guards even notice that their coffee has gone cold.
One more thing: don't be cocky. Middle of the night, nobody's supposed to be around, and if a guard spots you it's better to give him a knock on the head and a short nap than attempt a bullshit explanation. You won't make any friends, but at least you'll walk away.
-
"Man, this sucks." Dean takes off the Orioles hat and flings it into the back seat.
Sam looks at him in confusion. "What? We got the car. We're getting away. Nobody's going to prison for murder. What's there to complain about?"
"All of our shit's gone," Dean says. "Weapons, supplies, everything. This fucking sucks. We should--"
"No. No way are we breaking into the crime lab just to get your guns back."
"But--"
"No."
They drive in silence for a few minutes. It's three a.m. and the streets are nearly empty. Their daring rescue of the Impala from the impound lot was clean and quiet enough that it's unlikely anybody will notice it's gone until morning. By then, Sam hopes they'll be long gone from Baltimore. Nice city, but he won't be making any plans to visit again in the near future.
"I've done it before," Dean says suddenly.
Sam goes over the last several minutes of conversation to figure out what Dean is talking about, then gives up and asks, "Done what?"
"Gotten our stuff back from the cops even after it was taken as evidence."
"Yeah?" Sam knows this isn't going anywhere good, but he's too curious to let it slide. "When? How?"
"About two years ago, over in D.C." Dean's voice doesn't change at all, and he's too casual about it, but Sam feels the difference anyway. "Dad got picked up for armed robbery -- some dumbass senator's mistress had a cursed statue in her dining room, would you believe it? -- and there was this whole deal with national security and Interpol and everything, but -- well, you know. More assholes in suits on the case are just more assholes in suits getting in each other's way, doesn't mean we can't still do our job."
It sounds so much like something Dad would say that Sam's breath catches and he glances across the seat at Dean, watches him move from light to shadow as they pass under a streetlamp. Whereabouts unknown, Detective Ballard had said, like it was simple enough to read off a police report and sum up in two official words, like unknown didn't actually mean an empty clearing in South Dakota with nothing but ash on the ground and leafless trees on every side.
"So what happened?" Sam asks when Dean is quiet for too long.
"Lady realized that calling the authorities down on Dad meant trouble for her in the long run, especially if she was investigated for antiquities smuggling, so she dropped the charges and said it was all a big mistake, and Dad walked with a stack of weapons charges." Dean clears his throat, and when he goes on there's a hitch in his voice, so slight Sam only hears it because he's waiting for it. "But the forensics lab still had all his gear, everything, and didn't seem real eager to give it up. You know how it is when the feds get involved in this weird shit. Dad's truck would've ended up packed in a crate in some warehouse next to the Ark of the frickin' Covenant for the next hundred years, so we worked up a little plan to get it back."
"What did you do?" Sam has to admit to himself that he's impressed, and also a little relieved, in a way he can't quite identify. He knows next to nothing about what sort of trouble Dean and Dad got into while he was at Stanford, but for some reason learning that at least part of it involved being investigated by Interpol for antiquities smuggling is strangely reassuring.
Dean glances at Sam and a grin flashes across his face, there and gone in a blink. "I'm not telling."
"C'mon, man, you can't do that."
"Sure I can."
"Oh, that's real mature. Seriously, what'd you do?"
"You have to guess."
"Guess? What is this, twenty questions?"
"Yes. Well, nineteen, now."
Sam puts some effort into scowling, but he can't quite keep it up and smiles instead. "Fine. Did you wear an official uniform of some kind?"
"No way, man. Those geek costumes are your deal."
"Did you use official identification of some kind?"
"Yes. Seventeen."
"Did you do it during the daytime?"
"No. Sixteen."
"Does the fact that you just went right by the turn for the I-95 mean you're playing this stupid game to distract me from noticing that we're not heading out of town like we should be?"
"Damn, you're quick."
"Dean."
"Sam?"
"This is stupid. We can replace everything they took. It's too much of a risk."
"Don't worry, Sammy," Dean says brightly. "We'll be in and out in half an hour, I promise, and it'll be like we were never even there."
Sam sighs and slumps down in the passenger seat. Just like they were never in St. Louis, despite the gravestone with Dean's name on it, and just like they were never in any of the towns they've passed through, any of the crime scenes they've dotted with their fingerprints or the police reports they've marked with their pseudonyms, the houses they've smashed to pieces and graveyards they've filled with smoke.
"It's too dangerous," he says, but by now it's only a token protest. "If they catch you--"
"Dude, chill. They won't."
"Right, because your track record lately is so--"
"If they catch anybody, it's going to be you." Dean rolls to a stop under a red light and taps the steering wheel thoughtfully, staring into the empty intersection. "Now listen carefully. It's quick, but it's complicated."
"Great." Sam shakes his head. "Just the way I like it."
"Trust me, this is right up your alley. Get ready to break out the puppydog eyes."
In and out, there and gone, that's what they aim for, even if they never quite manage, like the ghosts they hunt and the bodies they burn, nothing left but fingerprints in the dust and footprints in the mud, gunpowder and rings of salt, shadows and ashes.
"Alright," he says. "Shoot."
Dean nods in satisfaction. "Right. Here's the plan--"
The light changes from red to green, the car rumbles forward, and Sam listens.