Fear of Violence

Note ~ Sam is 12, Dean is 16.

Sam's stomach was clenching as he struggled not to yelp. He was laying on one of the beds in the hotel, and trying not to be nauseous. He tried really hard to focus on the flashing neon sign outside their room. The cheap curtain just didn't keep the light out, but right now Sam was thankful he had it to focus on. Sam had just woken up, immediately stricken by flashes of violence. John was cutting through a ghoul's neck. Dean chopping through a vampire's shoulder. Disabled and down, John lopping off it's head. Blood was plentiful, but Sammy mostly saw it as a black ooze that spilled on the branches, grass and dirt. For some reason, most of his visions were in gray scale, especially when there was violence or immense emotions. Lately, all his flashes of his father and brother seemed to be intense.

John's expression scared him. It was a weary, tired of this world's bullshit expression. It was really hard looking, and cold. What really scared him was that Dean's expression was starting to mimic their father's. He had always seemed macho and in control, even when he wasn't really, but he had never seemed cold. The older Dean go the more stoic that expression got. It made Sam want to scream at him, beg him to stay away from the hunts. He wanted to lay down and temper tantrum, but he knew that wouldn't work. Besides, both would just look at him with disapproval. Neither believed in coddling or letting their emotions free.

Sam rubbed his face, opening and closing his mouth. His mouth was dry and gummy and had a nasty taste in it. The waking panic had really shaken him up, and he could feel one of those headaches coming up. Lately, they'd been turning into migraines. He looked discreetly to make sure his brother wasn't there, and sure enough he wasn't. He was out on another mission. Ever since his brother had started to get some real muscle on him, he'd been babysitting Sam less and less and going on hunts more and more.

Sure that Dean wasn't there to ask him what was wrong, Sam dashed for the bathroom, banging open the door so hard it left a hole in the cheap plaster. He dropped next to the toilet and started to vomit. Between hurling, he pressed his palms against his burning eyes and started sobbing. The sobbing brought on more vomiting, and he knelt their miserably.

The anger was too much. It wasn't enough that he had to see it in them every time they came back to their temporary home. He had to see it in the flashs he'd been getting since he was five. Thank God, when he was younger, John had just thought Sammy's crying and asking about screaming and weapons had just been real nightmares. He'd chalked it up to being about Mary or something recent that had attacked them. Ignore the fact that Sammy really didn't see that much, since Dean sheltered him. John was just like that, he didn't really take notice of facts about his son's welfare. He mostly just remembered hunter facts.

Sam covered his face as the puking stopped slowly. Sam tried not to let the fear cripple him. He needed to get up and brush his teeth. He needed to feed himself since Dean wasn't there. He got up and did just that, and then went to his own bed. Dean had stuffed all of his own food under there, even leaving some of the jerky that Dean prized . Sam smiled sadly, missing his brother so much he started to cry. Before they had left, Dean had put up such a fight that they hadn't left immediately. Dean had known the money John had left wouldn't be enough, and so he had went out and stolen a bunch of stuff for him. He had always tried to keep the fact that he stole away from Sam, but Sam had just realized it one day when Dean came back from the "store" with a bruise on his face and a broken finger.

He slowly fed himself even though he wasn't hungry. He tried not to think of the violence. He tried not to think about how happy he had been that they weren't here to witness him waking up gagging and gasping, about to scream. He didn't want them to know how different he was. He wondered how much Dean knew. Dean had basically raised him. After he had started being able to understand the flashes in his head when he was five, he had cried a lot because he had been scared of them. It had perplexed Dean, and worried him. Dean had thought his baby brother had been getting really ill or was growing up to be retarded or something else weird. After about two years, Sam had realized it wasn't normal and had kept really quiet. It wasn't until he was even older than that, that Sam had realized Dean must have really panicked. Dean had probably thought he'd hurt his brother somehow, or he was traumatized, or it was something genetic that just hadn't shown yet. Dean had already had pressure on himself. The fear of having a mentally handicapped brother must have really freaked him out for awhile.

Sam sat and stroked his hair as Dean had done when they were little. He was trying to be positive, but couldn't. He kept remembering the time he'd realized that his reactions were not normal. He'd been nine. Maybe he hadn't really had anything to compare himself to before, and it had taken this even to make him realize it. He'd stayed at a friend's house for once. It had been on a particularly long hunt, a month. Definitely the longest they'd ever stayed somewhere. He'd made a friend, AJ, at the school he was enrolled in. He'd had to beg for a week for John to let him go, calling him every night on the telephone. At the end of it, John had said yes. Long story short, they'd had a really great time until it had been bedtime. Sam was laying on the ground in the living room, with like five other boys. AJ was beside him.

Sam had fallen asleep, but had woken up screaming his head off. AJ had just about peed on himself, as did the other boys. They all stared wide eyed at him as he sat up, still yelling. When he saw them staring, he managed to stifle it down and he had covered his face as he tried to stop the tears. Conrad and Marjorie, AJ's parents, had come bursting in. When they saw Sam sitting by himself crying, they had both come and knelt beside him. Marjorie had touched his hair and Conrad had stroked his back, asking him what was wrong.

He couldn't tell them that he had seen his brother a little older and swinging a hatchet toward's Sammy's face. He was shuddering, and he couldn't calm down, and he had asked them to call his dad. They had, but John hadn't shown up. Dean had showed up at the door with a big fake smile on his face. At first, Conrad had been worried about letting them go out into the dark alone, but Dean just shrugged it off and said that Dad was getting gas up the street. He'd asked Dean to go get Sammy while he booked their new motel. Conrad had barely just let them go.

Dean and Sammy had walked up the street, and hopped into the Impala. Of course John wasn't there. Dean was thirteen at the time and already used to driving. John often let him drive since their travel destinations were long. Whenever they got caught, John just smiled and said he was teaching his boys how to drive. Dean did a U-turn and headed towards a back road to the motel so no cops would stop him. He may have been good at driving, but he obviously didn't look old enough.

"Was it a nightmare Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. It's okay now though." Sam said, and didn't explain anymore. He really hadn't been telling Dean about the visions for the past two years since that never seemed to help. Now he had a new reason. Fear. He knew his nightmarish visions were real. He seemed to have them before dad or Dean went on a hunt, and the vision was always of them inflicting pain. Several times he had seen one or the other get severely hurt, and those nights were the nights were Sammy couldn't seem to quit screaming. One particularly gruesome nightmare, he would always remember. Seeing a gash open up on Dean's young chest one night had kept him awake for three days. John and Dean had gone under somewhere with no reception, and he hadn't been able to get a hold of them. For those three days, Sammy found a terror he had never known. He thought he was once and for all orphaned. When they had gotten back and Sammy had seen the cut on his chest, Sammy had started sobbing so hard that he had thought he would pass out. He didn't think Dean would make it home, and had expected John to come back, saying he had buried Dean in the woods, or burnt his body.

He had clung to Dean so hard, and screamed so much that Dean ignored John and got in the Impala to take himself to the ER, to calm Sammy. Between Dean's resolution and Sammy's screams John had reluctantly opened the door and told Dean to scoot over. Sammy got in the car, and then they went to the ER.

The gash hadn't really been that deep, but Sammy could never forget seeing it open up on his skin, the blood gushing down. He could never forget the thick, black stitches that puckered Dean's skin for weeks. He couldn't forget the scar and the nightmare attached to it.

Those violent, pain filled nightmares had made him start clamming up about them. Since he'd started having them when he was five, he'd pretty much stopped talking by the time he was seven. Although, when he was really bothered he always sat and talked to Dean about it. Most of the time Dean was silent, although he tried to ask questions. A lot of the time, Dean had to do that thing he did when he got mad. He took a walk. He always came back, and always asked if Sammy was okay now, but Sammy quickly realized the nightmares made Dean angry. If that hadn't stopped him talking about it, his sleepover nightmare had definitely put an end to the talking.

The hatchet was Dean's, in this vision. A present from John. It was a handy little thing. It was a good size for the younger Dean since he couldn't wield an ax. Besides defense, it helped with a lot of things. Sammy didn't know why he was swinging it at his head, but he did know that all of his visions came true. So far, he'd never had a vision that didn't come true in a week. For several days and nights, Sammy remained stressed out. He couldn't figure out why his brother was going to kill him.

Was he tired of taking care of him? Sam tried not to think about that. Was Sam possessed by a ghost? He wondered about that, because John was chasing a werewolf right now. But ghosts could pretty much be anywhere. Maybe one of them had figured out just what a little freak he was. Maybe they'd figured out that their family member, their son, their brother, was a monster. How else could he have these visions? He had tried to look up magic, and it did exist. He had found the word seer, but that had not explain how sometimes he could fling stuff.

As far as he knew, abilities like this only came innately to monsters.

He had to wait only four days to figure out why the hatchet was coming at his face. Sam didn't have much warning. One night, he was laying flat on his back, and then there was a noise behind his head and then Dean was running across the room. Thankfully, it wasn't a very big room. He slammed the hatchet down beside Sam's head and onto some white creature's hand. There was a scream from the creature, and Dean dragged it away from Sam's pillow and threw it to the floor where he stomped on it's unhurt hand and then beheaded it. Dean stood breathing heavily in between their beds, looking down. He made sure Sam was okay, disposed of the body, and that was the end of it.

Sammy was so glad that he had found out why the hatchet was coming at his head, but that had planted a dark seed in his mind.

What if Dean DID ever figure out that he was a monster. What if dad ever found out what he was? Would he ever kill him, or order Dean to kill him? Would that hatchet ever be destined for his body? Sam couldn't help it. That day started a little spark of fear of Dean and John. John could without a doubt kill him. He was much bigger, he was an adult. Dean may be closer to his age, but he was already growing muscles that most adults didn't even have. Plus, Sam wrestled with his brother often. Dean could leave Sammy swearing and out of breath and red in the face, and Dean would just be laughing. Sam knew he didn't have a chance of fighting Dean off.

Sammy didn't keep much from Dean. Actually, Dean managed to worm a lot out of him, even if he was grumpy, even if he was sad. Even if he was feeling any emotion ever. He quit talking to Dean about his visions, though. Whenever he woke up wanting to scream, he rolled over and bit a blanket, or pillow, or even his arm. Whatever was nearest. Eventually, Dean thought that the nightmares were over and he quit asking. That was fine with Sammy. He wanted Dean to forget that he was a monster. He wanted to pretend that he was just like Dean, and forget his fear of violence coming from his family.