The Fear Always Finds Him
Title: The Fear Always Finds Him
Rating: Gen
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Nothing specific
Author:
geminigrl11
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The first emotion Sam could remember having was fear.
Fear was being pushed into the back seat or the closet or the basement by a father whose eyes were trained on some unseen thing, his hand clenched around a curved knife, a shotgun, a .45. Fear was hearing "Be quiet and don’t move" more often than "I love you" or "Sleep tight." Fear was feeling your brother sitting tense beside you in the shadows, body poised to run or fight to protect you. Your brother with a curved knife, a shotgun, a .45, clenched in his small hands.
Almost from the beginning, Dean had tried to make a game of it, like promising Sam he could play with his G.I. Joes if he stayed quiet until their father came for them. Sometimes, Dean would whisper stories, stories that sounded wondrous and magical to Sam but were in fact Dean’s memories of life when their mother was alive. Birthday parties, preschool, soccer games, visits to the zoo . . . to Sam these were as fantastical ideas as dragons or wizards or Peter Pan.
But Dean’s tactics had a side effect. Sam learned that the cardinal sin was to show fear. "Don’t cry, Sammy. Only babies cry." Dean said the words matter-of-factly, just as his father had said them to him. And like his father had with him, Dean unknowingly taught Sam to bury the fear, to hide what he was really feeling and put on a brave face, no matter what the cost.
And for Sam, the cost was dear. The fear was always with him. Bad things seemed to find them wherever they were, even though they moved constantly. It took Sam a few years to realize that it wasn’t so much the evil finding them as them seeking the evil. He couldn’t understand it, especially when finding the evil did not seem to bring his father any happiness or bring any peace to their chaotic existence. He had asked his father once why he did what he did. "We’re helping people," John had answered, but all Sam saw were adult faces lined with sadness, like his father’s. They always thanked John for his help, but they always looked older somehow when the Winchesters departed than when they had arrived.
And sometimes - sometimes, people died. Then the fear would creep from its ever-present place in Sam’s chest into his throat until he felt like he was strangling. John and Dean usually kept him from seeing anything, although sometimes there was an unmoving hand or foot visible, a smear of blood. But even without seeing, Sam always knew when someone had died. The air felt different - colder somehow. And his father would walk as though he was in mud or deep water, his limbs almost too heavy to lift. He would grab Dean and Sam and hold them, pulling them against him with his big arms wrapped tight around their bodies. Those hugs were always scary to Sam. They were the only times John ever hugged his sons.
As he grew older, Sam learned to manage the fear a little better. His father trained him, gave him his own weapons for protection, and of course, Dean was always there. Dean made him laugh, taught him to tie his shoes, made sure John bought his favorite snack when they went grocery shopping - and even more, Dean wasn’t afraid to hug Sam for no other reason than that they were brothers. Dean seemed to sense some of Sam’s fear, even though they never talked about it. Sam started having nightmares almost as soon as he could walk, and Dean would always crawl in next to him in his bed and wrap his arms around Sam so that he could sleep again. Dean was the one thing Sam could be sure of.
Over time, Sam became a decent fighter and intuitive hunter, but he embraced the research angle to such a degree that it became almost exclusively his job. Reading articles in musty library books and on microfiche machines let him distance himself from whatever it was they were hunting. And when he was researching, Sam felt just a tiny bit of control over his life. On paper, everything was black and white. No blood. The words became his talismans: problems and solutions.
But the fear never really went away. Instead, it evolved. From a general feeling of never being at ease, always needing to look over his shoulder and strain his ears in the dark, being ready to defend against an attack, to the knowledge that, at any moment, his father and his brother - his Dean - could be ripped away from him.
Sam remembers vividly the first time he came face-to-face with his brother’s mortality. They had all picked up their little hurts along the way - a burn here, a cut there. A myriad of bruises from a myriad of sources. Nothing too serious. But this time, it had been bad. He could remember blood seeping from his brother’s chest, Dean’s eyes closed, his face pale. The drive to the hospital had been a blur, and his father’s own fear had been a tangible thing. Official-looking people in white coats had whisked Dean away, and as he disappeared behind a set of swinging doors, John had pulled Sam into his arms. The hug itself was crushing, but Sam had barely felt it. In that instant, Sam had lost everything. Dean was dead. His father’s hug had proven it.
The next few hours had passed in a growing haze of darkness. Sam felt as though he was screaming endlessly although he made no sound. His father talked to him now and then, had covered him with a jacket and forced him to lie on one of the cold vinyl chairs in the waiting room. But Sam couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him. All he knew was that Dean was dead. Nothing else mattered.
When his father finally brought him to where Dean was slowly waking up, Sam couldn’t make sense of it. Dean was dead, and yet here he was, speaking his name and wrapping his fingers through his brother’s. Sam had stared at where their hands intertwined, unable to believe the warmth and the gentle pulse against his skin. The darkness that had been closing in finally claimed him. John had blamed it on exhaustion, but Sam knew it was the fear - the fear had finally taken over.
It was then that Sam had started to pull away. He couldn’t explain, didn’t even know how, to his father or to Dean, how strong the fear ran, how it was with him not only every waking moment but when he was sleeping too. There was no respite. And the act of keeping it hidden - "Only babies cry" - became all but unbearable.
Stanford had been an achievement Sam could have hardly even dreamed of. The reaction of his family, the aching loss of not being with his father or Dean anymore, the guilt at knowing that he was turning on his back on them, on his mother, letting them down - these were no match for the fear. It was too powerful, and he knew, if he stayed, it would consume him. He had walked away, ignoring the hurt in his brother’s face, the anger in his father’s stance, thinking that he would finally be safe.
He was wrong.
Sam knows now that the fear is inescapable. God knows he has tried, but the fear always finds him. Some days he can feel the darkness pull at him again, its grip stronger and much more permanent. Days when he can still feel Jessica’s blood dripping on his forehead, hear the blast of the shotgun as he shoots his brother, smell the smoke he should not remember from the fire that claimed his mother. Some days, it’s hard to resist, that blessed darkness.
But Sam has a sinking suspicion that the fear will find him there, too.