A/N: All characters belong to their respective authors and studios. No copyright infringement intended. I write for love only.


"Gooba gabba, gooble gobble," chanted the midgets, the bearded lady, the conjoined twins, the hermaphrodite . . . "We accept her, one of us!" The dwarf strode over the table passing the cup from mouth to mouth. "We accept her, we accept her, gooba gobble, one of us!"

Hercules laughed raucously. "They're going to make you one of them, my peacock!"

She stared at him then rose slowly from the table, stood transfixed in horror as the dwarf handed the cup to her, but she didn't drink.

"Gooba gabba, gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!"

"No!" she cried. "Dirty! Slimy! Freaks! FREAKS!"

. . .

It was an old black and white movie he and Dean had watched late one night when Dad was out on a hunt. At the end, the beautiful trapeze artist met a monstrous fate: the carnies turned on her, took her legs, tarred and feathered her torso, squashed her hands to look like webbed feet, and tore out her tongue so she had no voice but a duck-like quack. In the closing scene she was penned up as an exhibit in the freak side-show. Sam had nightmares for weeks.

Arguing with Dean on an old bridge in some backwater Californian town, Sam thought he could hear that chant again.

"You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

"And who's that?"

"You're one of us."

"Gooba gabba, gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!"

"No!" Sam cried. "I'm not like you! This is not going to be my life!"

But the steel girders of the bridge seemed to pen him in, like the bars of a cage closing around the helpless, voice-less bird who has no say in her destiny. And what kind of monster would the life make of him, Sam wondered?

Maybe he'd caught a glimpse of it later, when he'd ruthlessly suggested to a grieving widower that his dead wife had murdered their children because of his infidelity, as he'd watched the man turn away from him trembling and broken.

One of us, the midget had chanted, sealing Sam's fate. Gooba gobble, one of us, freak! FREAK!


A/N: The movie referred to is "Freaks" (1932)