- -
Sam was never his father's favorite child. He was too different, too
independent, too tall. He eclipsed his father's height, and Dean's, by the time
he was seventeen years old.
He was quite a picture to look at. Soft features that bent in empathy to all
of the pain that surrounded him. He was nothing like Dean.
Dean, the favored son, with a blazing fire in his eyes that sought out
mischief and devilry. He was born for the hunt. For him, it was only a matter of
time before he would join his father in the search for what happened to their
mother, the beloved female of their family. Dean didn't have many fights with
his father; most consisted of him wanting to hunt, but not being old enough.
"You don't have the experience, the edge," his father would say. "You're too
young. You'd be killed straight away."
Dean understood. Sam did not. Why did their father have to go away for so
long so often? They had to cover up for him at school, telling teachers he
couldn't come to the PTA meetings because he was sick or working nights that
week. Dean was fine with the deceit, the lies. Teachers meant nothing to him. A
straight "D" student, he messed around for the entirety of his educational
experience, hefting up barely enough effort to scrape by. He was intelligent, no
doubt about that, but he lacked the motivation to go anywhere with his
knowledge. The only knowledge that mattered to him was that of the paranormal.
Sam was different. He loved school. He loved learning. His brain was a sponge
that soaked up all that entered its path, slurping up facts years ahead of his
time. He had been just a baby when his mother was taken from him, but she left
him one final gift, and that was her good head. His abilities came from her, or
so his father said. All of his "A" papers were glanced at by his dad, who
grunted, and muttered, "Just like your mother..." He was proud of Sam. He just
didn't know how to show it. He couldn't relate. His child was nothing like him.
When their dad was home, sometimes he would drive them places. To the movies,
where they could spend time together in the dark, without having to create
pleasant conversation. Sam often wondered if either his dad or his brother knew
what pleasant conversation was. He'd sit in the car as the tall, slender trees
zoomed past the windows as they traveled on their way to no place in particular.
Dean turned up the Metallica. Sam crouched in the corner of the backseat with a
book in his hands, his brow creased, trying his best to concentrate amidst the
chaotic noise.
Dad was gone so often that they learned to fend for themselves. Sam would
push his booster chair right up next to the counter in order to reach the
surface to make a dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He liked grape
jelly best. His father always got strawberry (it was what he and Dean
preferred). He learned to make macaroni and cheese. Oatmeal with brown sugar
sprinkled on the top. Hot dogs. Two kids alone in a big house, with sneaky
suspicions, fears, and the tortured memories of yesterdays.
Sam wouldn't say that he and Dean were ever particularly close, but they had
their moments. They would commiserate about Dad being gone all the time. They
would almost be getting along, and then Sam would say something like, "I hate
him for doing this to us."
"Shut up. Don't say shit like that," Dean would say. And the spell would be
over.
But sometimes... sometimes Dean would flick a cheesy noodle his brother's
way. When it landed on his nose, warm and sticky, Sam would laugh. And he would
wish he was Dean, that he could get over things so quickly; that he could
forgive their father for all the times he was never, ever there. The blind faith
that Dean had in his father was something Sam envied to the hilt, but he would
never give up his inquiring mind. Always seeking an explanation, needing a
confirmation of why something was okay. His lack of faith in his father morphed
into a lack of faith in himself. A lack that he would fight all his life
through.
Sam grew up. He turned eighteen. He graduated high school. And he came to his
father, on one of the weeks he was home, writing in that damn journal of his,
feverishly scribbling so that the writing was nearly illegible, and could be
deciphered only by others with handwriting equally as bad. Sam wasn't one of
those people. When he said at five years old that he wanted to be a doctor, his
teacher laughed and said that would never happen, for his handwriting was too
legible. That was a confusing day.
As Sam approached his father, the day after graduation, he swallowed over the
lump of sickening anticipation in his throat. "Dad?"
His father looked up. "I know what you're here to ask for, son, and the
answer is no."
"I want to go to college, Dad. I have this... need to learn. To get out of
this place. I got a scholarship."
"I don't much care. Sam, I've decided, and you're coming hunting with us. End
of story." Dad and Dean now hunted together, and they were quite a team. Surely
they didn't need Sam, the young one, to slow them down.
"I can't," said Sam. "I won't."
His father didn't say anything, and he wouldn't, but Sam could see it in his
eyes, his thoughts, from his deepest heart: Why can't you be more like your
brother? Why can't you just respect me, and obey? Why can't you be the way I
need you to be, instead of the way you insist on being?
Because, he would answer, that's who I am. I'm not a hunter, I'm not a
killer, I don't follow wherever you lead. I will never be the one you rave
about, the one you praise as you pat my head; who I am will stop me forever from
being like Dean, the good son.
- -
end
