Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its a~mazing characters...
A/N: Alrighty then... I'm not a Sammy-fangirl as per se... but I felt sorry for him. So, this is just my POV of their family and how the differences in their approaches to hunting and life...
Please drop me a message or a review if you liked it ^^
Differences between Safe and Normal
Sam and Dean Winchester knew exactly how dangerous hunting was. The exhaustion, the constant insecurity and fear. How every flickering lightbulb became a signal for a poltergeist. How every creak of the floors at night meant ghouls. How a fullmoon meant nothing more than another sleepless night of hunting. They knew.
Even before they could read they were taught the rules of hunting. Lock the doors, salt the windows, SIGs under the pillows, silver knives kept in their boots, holy water always kept in the water bottles, lighters in the pockets and medikit to be topped up on every store run. The rules were clear, precise, unchanging and non-negotiable.
They started to hunt alongside their father when they showed their ability to handle themselves in his training. He drilled them with training session just as he himself had endured as a US Marine. They followed a secure routine in their day and no matter what happened, they always stuck to the rules. Stay safe, stay hidden. No attention to be drawn at school, no long-term attachments formed and no standing out. That's how a hunter stays alive. He melds into the same background from which he emerges to strike. They were trained well.
When Dean started school, he was a shoe-in. At least, with maths and science. He found geography interesting, but only up until its use for strategem was outlived. Having homework done and tests aced became last on his priority list. His choice to remain mostly labelled as the 'rebel without a cause' allowed him to keep below the radar of curious questions. It became a routine for him not to have good grades or his homework done. And he was fine with that. He became the outsider. But, hunting was something else. It was a challenge. It was like an equation for him. There were rules to follow, but how you got the answer was up to you. He loved it. His skills were honed and his blade was sharpened, he knew his ability to improvise was his greatest asset and it showed.
But he remember the time, way back when, when his mother was still alive. He remembered how she used to kiss him goodnight. He remembered how he and his dad used to play catch outside. He remembered how his only worry used to be what excuse he had to come up with as to why his clothes got so full of mud or how all the Lucky Charms was already gone after only two days. His dad used to smile back then too. He remembered how it felt to be just another family. How it felt to be normal.
When Sam started school, he was a natural. Facts were memorized like clockwork and his homework was always done on time, if not early. He memorized dates, facts, histories and occurrences as if he had the entire page in front of him, it was his talent. He was polite, sincere and took pride in his work. A model student. School was an escape from hunting. The world of the unsure. The world where almost nothing made sense and nothing could be predicted. Skills taught by rote had to be improvised into a different use on the spot and no errors could be made. There was no pattern to follow, facts were rare and only basic plans could be formed before an attack was made. He hated it.
Before Sam left for Stanford… the arguments escalated. It always did. It started out with the usual argument of how unfair it was to have had a childhood like he did. To be trained like a warrior. To be fighting to stay alive everyday. How painful it was not to be able to tell your teacher exactly why you had cuts on your arms and bruises on your face. How much he hated how every time a social worker came to his school, how his heart clenched, because he knew either he or Dean was about to be called into that office. Then, just as John told Sam how selfless the Job is and how many lives they had already saved… Sam always met John with the finishing blow. "Do you thinks this is what mom would want us to be doing?" and he would glare at John with the same eyes Mary had.
When Sam left for Stanford, Dean had to drive him. Sam knew that he could never really escape hunting. He knew he wouldn't be able to unlearn the habit of always carrying a silver blade with him. He knew he would always keep Blessed water in his normal water bottles. He knew he would still salt the doorways and windows each night... but he was too tired to care. He wanted out. They drove in silence up until the last turn-off. Dean had slowed the car down and dropped his hands from the steering wheel. He frowned in the same way John always did. He asked Sam to stay. They sat in silence until Sam got out of the Impala and slammed his door shut after grabbing his bag from the backseat. He left.
The first person Dean turned to when his father went missing was Sam. He had explained to him what had happened. He couldn't help but feel his heart clench at the thought that he was ripping his brother from his life at Stanford. Sam was living the life he had always wanted. The one Dean had a taste of once, but Sam never even experienced. But when Sam had refused and Dean asked his brother the question he had always wanted to know… "Do you think you can just live some normal… apple-pie life?", he was surprised at Sam's answer.
"Not normal…. safe", Sam had said.
Because Dean knew what it meant to be normal. Sam only knew what it meant to be safe.