Title: You Don't Know Me
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The world doesn't know Sam Winchester.
Disclaimer: No matter how many deals I've made with demons, neither the show nor the brothers themselves - stud-muffins that they are - have yet to become mine.
Spoilers: General spoilers for season two, and the Pilot.
The world doesn't know Sam Winchester. Neither do the people in it.
They don't know that his mother died when he was an infant and that, to this day, the smell of smoke still makes him sick in a way that haunts his very soul.
They don't know that the first time he fired a gun he was five years old. He'd been stupid to follow them – curiosity killed the cat, or nearly the boy, in his case – and would've cost his father and brother their lives had he not pulled the trigger with aim so dead-on it had to be luck.
They don't know that the next time he even held a firearm – despite his brother's infinite threats of ass-whoopings in light of his refusal to use a weapon – was only after his family was endangered again, eight years later.
They don't know that he still remembers how the recoil sent him flying backwards, leaving his skin bruised and battered for weeks, and that he still thinks of this whenever he lines up a shot.
They don't know that he hasn't been able to eat chocolate chip cookies for months because each and every one tastes of tears and blood, not the sugar-sweet warmth and familiarity he craves so badly he'd turn himself inside out to get it.
They don't know that he refuses to look in a mirror because whenever he does all he can see are his irises, black as the darkest thoughts he harbours in the recesses of his mind. All he can see is the face of the monster he will someday become.
They don't know how much Sam wishes his life could be normal, how much he wants to go back to college, get a nine-to-five job and marry the girl of his dreams.
They don't know how impossible that is since she is dead; killed by the very thing his family has been hunting for years.
People don't know Sam Winchester – they never have and they never will – because it is no one else's God damn business why he does what he does.
They will never know that Sam is a demon hunter – one of many, all undercover, all performing their tasks without so much as a thank you – and that's all he will ever be.
No one knows that, despite the circumstances, he wants to be something more.
