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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 5 years

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sam + best friend?

up until about four or five years ago, asking about ‘friends’ to sam would make him look like he did back in 4.13, when mr wyatt asked him if he was happy–confused that he honestly doesn’t know the answer to what should be a pretty straightforward question, or that perhaps he does know the answer, but it’s at the end of a long, dark and complicated road in his mind and he doesn’t have the energy to travel it.

as a small child i don’t think he had any trouble making friends, even best friends, in the way that small children do, with unthinking conviction. it hurt him that they had to keep moving so often for seeming arbitrary reasons and he couldn’t keep the best friends he made, but at that point his resentment hadn’t yet translated into suspicion, and dean and john were able to mollify him fairly easily. besides, maybe the next town over they’ll actually have a home instead of a motel room, and there sam would look for a best friend with whom he would share snacks and books and secrets and whom he would cherish forever.

of course, after the christmas of ‘91 and sam finally finding out about the hunting life, it becomes clear why they move around so much and why childish dreams of having a best friend were just… dreams. for a good long while, sam hates the hopelessness of it and withdraws as much as he dares at school–what was the point of making any friends at all if they were going to leave in a few weeks anyway? he doesn’t understand the seeming casual-ness of dean’s relationships (tho of course dean had so much more going on under the surface–that’s a whole another can of worms); he wants, so much, to participate in all the little dramas and joys of his friends at school but is also… disdainful of them a little bit? because they don’t know the horrible things he knows or seen the horrible things he has. maybe if sam still knew about and fought the supernatural and had a permanent home base he would choose to be by himself and read books rather than hang out with friends, or even just one best friend. but it’s the fact that this choice has been taken away from him that somehow really hurts.

(for sometime he thought the solution to this having an imaginary best friend. a middle-aged man in a colourful costume who called himself ‘sully’ came along. at first, sam was disconcerted and sometimes even frightened of this man that only he could see–ghostghostghost–but sully seemed harmless. he listened. he knew exactly what to say. and sam was so, so very lonely.

sully disappeared one day when sam came back from his first real hunt with his father and brother, tired, bloodied and wishing desperately for comfort. sam tried so hard to conjure sully once again, but he wouldn’t see sully until twenty one years had passed and he learned that sully had lied to him. by this time, sam had learned that deception is the only way he could be loved, and did not think much of the betrayal that had cut him so deeply when he was a child.)

he loosens up a little bit as he grows older and the prospect of going to college appears like a light at the end of a very long tunnel. he still doesn’t have enough time to form attachments to anybody, but by this time, he’s more at peace with this, and besides, he’s too busy trying to build a near-impossible future for himself with his own bare hands and trying to hide that from his father and brother.

stanford is… different. to be sure, he has plenty of work to do here too, from day to day sustenance to performing well enough to keep ahead of his scholarship requirements. he makes friends, but doesn’t get close enough to any one to call them his ‘best friend’. perhaps he’s been conditioned by a lifetime of never putting down roots; perhaps it’s guilt that he can never bring to a friendship all of himself, because he dare not talk about the supernatural; perhaps it’s paranoia. but tyson brady seeks him out, seems fascinated by what sam wants to be far more than what sam was, and coming at a time when sam’s pretty much given up on being intimate with people, he’s utterly taken with this boy who seems so interested in accepting sam as he is. it’s… not an easy relationship; it’s intense and often physically so. and when brady comes back from his break different, sam is both heartbroken and determined to help him as much as he can.

(tyson brady, too, was a lie.)

after jessica’s death and falling headlong back into the hunting life, he’s steadily cut off contact with his friends. every relationship that he thought he cultivated has turned out to be a lie. friends like castiel, or charlie, or jody are his friends insofar as they are dean’s. the idea of having a best friend–that’s relegated to the mists of a past life. he fought against this in fits and starts for a few years after returning to hunting, but his idea of his own self has been so shattered by years of abuse that now, he has retreated into a role that requires the least effort and little chance of emotional exposure–one of quiet support, of resignation to everything he’d once rebelled against, of acceptance of the twisted ‘righteousness’ behind every decision that has left him a patchwork of human flesh, demon blood, and angelic grace.

this is all true, but for one thing: the phantom hand that closes over sam’s shoulder, the forked tongue hissing in his ear, the voice whispering i am yours and you are mine for all eternity.

hallucifer was once how sam processed his time in the Cage. he still is, in a lot of ways. but he has evolved with sam and his experiences, and he lives in sam’s head, in all of the dark corners and the damage. he isn’t sully, or dean, or brady, or castiel, but he isn’t a lie, and for that, for now, he’s all sam’s got.

he’ll do.

( headcanon prompts! )

#supernatural #sam winchester #adventures in sam's head #mlmsam #meta

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