Author’s Note: Howdy.

First: I will admit that I am not completely pleased with this story. Normally, I would never post a story that I was this unsure of, but...

Second: this has not been bataed, nor even re-read. I literally just sat down and started typing. It’s been written in one sitting and was unplanned. Please feel free to critique, but bear in mind that I have not ‘cleaned’ this story up yet. Expect clumsiness. The ending was so not planed. I’m not sure where it came from, and I’m not sure if I like it. So…anyway.

Three: I’m not sure if I actually like this story. I warn everyone now that I may jerk it off the net at any given time.

edit Someone has rightfully asked if this is saint!Sam: and honestly, I don't think so. But I'll leave it up to the reader to decide. /edit

Disclaimer: I don’t own Supernatural (I don’t even know who does). I’m making no money. Any resemblance to anyone living, dead, or wandering the earth in ghostly torment is completely coincidental.

Title: Scars

Author: Ghost

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You can only see it when he’s tan. That scar. Only when he’s tan, and in the sun with his shirt off. Like now, on a Florida beach, sprawled face down in the sand, half asleep. It’s a rarity, him being shirtless in just the right light for that scar to show…and I’m glad. Because so long as I don’t have to see it, I don’t have to think about it.

It’s not like he doesn’t have dozens of scars. Hell, we all do. Comes with the territory. And most of his are a hell of a lot more impressive than that thin, faint line across his shoulder blades. There’s the raised welt on his left side, from that chunk of wood that that poltergeist in Muncie threw him into. There’s the raw looking shiny patch on his hip from that bogie that took a chunk out of him when he was fifteen. He fucking bled like a pig and there had been no skin left to stitch up, so major scarage. Hell, there’s even a darkish mark on his right knee that’s a left over of a bad spill off his bike when he was just tiny. So, yeah, he has some impressive scars.

But none of them fill me with the same…churning, as the one on his back. That’s the one that broke us. The one that changed him forever. Changed all of us forever. That’s the only scar I feel guilty for.

I never really understood it, you know? What was between Sam and dad; how fucked up it was. I never understood. I just rolled with it; until that night.

Sammy tried so hard, when he was small. He tried so hard to be what he thought dad wanted, what he thought I wanted. But he never could. Dad would never let him. Hell, I would never let him. I knew that dad liked me better; that he was prouder of me; that I was the good son, with all my cutting class and bar fights and cons. I loved the fact that dad loved me more, and it never dawned on me that that was maybe a little fucked up.

I was an ass, okay?

Sammy…Sammy never had a shot. If he brought home a ‘B’, dad demanded to know why it wasn’t an ‘A’. If he brought home an ‘A’, dad wanted to know if it was the highest grade in the class. If he got the highest grade, dad said he was an introverted candy ass who spent too much time in books, and set him to double training shifts.

If I skipped school, dad laughed and said that what those people taught was useless. If Sam skipped school, he got sent to his room, while dad and I ate pizza and watched whatever game was on.

If we went hunting, and in the very slight chance that I should perhaps make a mistake, well, that was a learning experience, and everyone was okay, and I would know better next time.

If Sam made a mistake…. Well, let’s just say it was usually not chalked up to a little learning experience.

The really funny thing: Sam loved hunting. He loved the mystery of it; the secrecy of it; the thrill of it. He loved figuring out what the big-bad was, and how to take it down. He got jazzed at the idea of being heroes, even if no one could ever know.

Dad eventually killed that in him. That fierce kind of joy. He wasn’t ever fast enough for dad, or quiet enough, or sharp enough. He was too emotional, too small, too awkward. By the time he was twelve dad regularly told him that he was too soft to deal with the hunt and too hard to deal with anything else. It never seemed to occur to the old man that he hadput Sam in an imposible kid couldn't ever win for loosing.

That particular speach started a few weeks before Sammy picked up that scar.

I should have seen it coming. I should have stopped it.

I didn’t.

There was a hunt. Not even a big hunt. But something happened. Something to do with Sam. I wasn’t in the room with them, I didn’t see, but dad yanked us out so fast that I barely had time to grab my shit. He was screaming at Sammy the whole way back to the rental; how ‘he wouldn’t have it’, and that he would put a stop to this before it started. It didn’t help that he was drinking from the fifth he kept in the car - he was always sober on the hunt, but he never saw any reason to delay picking the bottle back up once it was over.

We got back to the trailer park, and dad was toasted and still going – ramping up instead of calming down; his voice going softer, but somehow more scary because of it. Sammy had just sat in the back, not looking at either of us. He was staring out the dark window, shaking just a bit, but not defending himself or yelling back. He just sat there, just passively trying to wait it out. And truth be told, I hated him a little right then. I knew it was his fault, somehow, that we were going home instead of hunting. That dad was pissed and pissed off instead of ordering pizza and watching the game with me.

Those kinds of things were always his fault.

It was late when we got back. Dark. Quiet. The little gravel streets of the park were empty. The inside of our rundown little car smelled like dad’s anger, and Sammy’s despair. Like whisky and mold. And I wanted the fuck out of it. I knew that something was breaking between them, and all I could do was think of getting the fuck out of the way before I got hit by shrapnel.

Dad slammed the car into park outside our door and I leapt out, telling dad that I was going to walk down to the park office to get a pop out of the machines there.

I knew we had Coke in the fridge.

Dad got out, ignoring me, growling at Sammy to get his ass in the trailer. Sammy got out and…and just for a second he met my eyes; the look wasn’t hopeful – he’s never had any illusions that I could, or would, stop dad – but sad and desperate, and not a little jealous.

And I turned away, walking down the dark gravel, hearing dad order Samuel into the tin can we lived in. I turned away … and I didn’t look back.

I stayed away for awhile. Hung out in the dim light next to the soda machines and smoked my last cig where dad wouldn’t see me. I figured dad would verbally strip Sammy raw over whatever it was he had done. He might even smack him. It had been known to happen. Maybe more often to Sammy than to me, but we had both felt the rough side of dad’s hand on a very few rare occasions.

Eventually I wandered back, figuring that it would all have died down. Tomorrow I would harp on the kid and find out what the stupid little shit had done to set dad off –

But my plans went out the window as I pulled open the trailer door. Sammy was hunched over, trapped between the wall andthe counter in the kitchen. Dad was behind him. Dad’s arm was pulled back, leather belt clenched in his fist and he swung just as I stepped in.

I will never forget that sound as long as I live.

For half a second I froze. Then Sammy sagged a bit, and before I knew it I had shouted and lunged forward, shoving dad as his arm pulled back again.

Dad was surprised, and very drunk. That was the only reason I got the drop on him -I’ve never fooled myself about that. There was some shouting. He told me to back the fuck off. I told him to shut the fuck up, that he wasn’t going near Sam again until he was sober. He told me that he was trying to save the dumb fuck. I told him that so was I. He told me that I didn’t understand. I told him that I didn’t care.

He said that it was all Sam’s fault. Everything. That Mary would still be alive if the little fuck had been born dead.

I told him to get out.

Eventually he left. Of course by that time we didn’t have and dishes left, and very little of the furniture was still standing, but he did leave.

Sam had stayed crouched down in the tiny kitchen while dad raved, and that’s where I found him. His shirt was a loss and I carefully tore it off of him. I was glad that dad had left it on him, though. Dad had hit with the buckle end, and the fabric had blunted most of the blows. Only one of the welts was open, bleeding. It ran across his shoulders horizontally. So Sammy hadn’t just stood by and let himself be beaten. The angle suggested that this had started as Sammy was turning or running from dad. It had probably been enough to keel him over, letting dad get behind him.

I had cleaned him up, taping the cut shut and icing the welts. I got him a drink and helped him settle onto his belly in the cot he slept in. I told him dad didn’t mean it, what he said.

He never looked at me. Not once.

And that was the night Sammy quit us.

He just…stopped. He stopped playing; he stopped making his bad little jokes. He stopped telling me stories, or asking me to help him do…anything. And he definitely stopped giving a shit about anything that dad thought.

He stopped being a kid.

Have you ever seen someone, two weeks shy of their thirteenth birthday, who finds no joy in anything? It’s a sad fucking thing.

Dad came back the next evening, and I could see he was ashamed. More then ashamed. The man was freaking mortified at what he could remember about what he had done and said. When he caught a look at Sam’s back he had come as close to crying as I’ve ever seen him.

He never apologized to Sam, but I never saw dad drunk again after that night either. I think that made it easer for me to let it go.

Sammy, of course, never saw how badly dad took what he did.

Sammy ran a bit of a fever for a few days. And he was stiff for a few more. And sometime during that week all that joy he had, all that little kid excitement that made him bounce and sing and laugh at really lame jokes… it turned into this low-grade rage. Sam was like a burning trash-pit after that night. Mostly a trash-pit’s just hot, and nasty, and irritates you because it takes up space. But blow on it just right and it will burst into searing flames, scorching everything that it touches. And the worst part, the very worst part about a trash-pit, is that you can’t even blame someone else, because it’s your trash. You dumped it, and you set it on fire in the first place.

Dad never raised a hand to either of us again after that. Hell, even the hugs I had been used to getting on a semi-regular basis became a rarity. It was like dad didn’t trust himself with us anymore.

That kind of hurt, you know?

Not that Sammy cared. Hell, Sammy was probably glad. Sammy and dad fought continually after that. Dad would demand, and Sammy would refuse. Dad would order and Sammy would ignore. Dad would yell and suddenly Sammy, four foot nothing Sammy, was yelling back. Hell, sometimes Sammy would just push and push until I wanted to cave his teeth in. And dad would bite and sneer and come so damned close…and it would get rough, but never anything like that night. The fighting was never ending, until that last spectacular explosion that had Sammy taking off for Stanford and dad declaring that he could never, ever, come back to this family. And Sam didn’t look back.

I was pissed at Sam about that too, for awhile; but you have to see it from Sammy’s side. What else are you going to do when you grow up with a father who hates you except hate him back? Even if you love him a little, too.

After that night when he was twelve, Sam had lived with us, but he wasn’t a part of us any more. And for a long time I blamed him. If he had just tried harder, not argued so much, not wanted so much….

But then, sometimes, like now, I see that scar – and I know better.

And I can’t help the sigh.

Sammy’s head turns in the sand and he squints at me, a vague, drowsy smile playing around his face. “What’s up?”

I look at him, and just for a moment it’s on the tip of my tongue – to apologize, to sympathize….

Instead I snag his tee-shirt out of the sand and fling it at him. “Put that on, Einstein, before you turn into a lobster.”

He yawns and sits up to shake the shirt out before pulling it on. The blue fabric falls over his back, hiding the scar, tucking it away where I don’t have to see it and don’t have to think about it, and I’m feeling pretty edgy right now.

But Sammy wouldn’t be Sammy without being contrary. The sun has him doped, and he’s loose and relaxed for the first time in freaking forever.

“You ‘bout ready to get the hell out of here?”

He flops back down in the sand, half smile still in place. “What about all the bikini babes you were gonna chase? I ain’t seen you running yet.”

“Yeah well, slim pickings,” I lie. The beach is just warming up and there are more girls every minute, each prettier than the next. Sammy’s amused brown gaze pins me. “Okay, so maybe I just want a beer.”

He chuckles and puts his head back down on his arms. “S’matter? You scared of the wild spring break chicks?” His eyes close.

“No, seriously. Just think: cold and smooth, little droplets of water slipping down the sides. Cool and full and …mmm, beer.”

“Does sound good,” He admits, not opening his eyes. And almost instantly coolers all around us began to fling themselves open. Startled owners squawk, jerking away from the noise before leaning forward to peer inside.

Sam’s eyes snap open at the noise, his body going tense, and I see in them a look that sends me reeling. His eyes are so sad and despairing and my heart lodges in my throat.

Oh fuck.

He was relaxed, almost asleep. He was having fun. We were talking about having a cold beer. We were talking about cold beer, and the coolers had opened.

He was happy and relaxed, and the coolers had opened.

He was always happiest on the hunt, before dad beat the living shit out of him. When he was on the edge of thirteen. At puberty. When most kids who have a psychic ability begin to manifest…usually as poltergeists or by freak accidents.

I suddenly wonder what happened that night. Had Sammy moved something without touching it? Opened a door? Knocked something over?

Whatever had happened, dad had fucking freaked. Freaked enough to really hurt him. Freaked enough to repress Sam’s abilities before they even developed?

Maybe. Possibly.

“Damn.”

He looks at me, and that look cuts me. There’s no hope in that look. I know he knows what I’m thinking – maybe not the specifics, but the general drift – and he knows I won’t go near this particular subject with a ten foot pole. He knows I won’t ask. I can’t. I just can’t deal with this shit.

“So,” I say, clearing my throat and turning away. I’m ignoring the grumbling of the owners of the spilled coolers around us, ignoring the fact that the coolers thing happened at all. “You’re ready for that beer now, huh?”

I don’t want to know this, Sam. I can’t deal with this.

His eyes drop. “Whatever. Just so long as it’s somewhere with wi-fi. I’ve got some work to do.” He’s being kind. He lets me turn away from it. But his brief contentment is gone. His body is tight again, as he slips on his socks and shoes.

And he won’t meet my eyes.

But I know that he doesn’t blame me. Not really. We both know the cost of being in this family is giving up chucks of who you are. He quit us once because he just couldn’t not be him anymore. I wonder how long it will be until he has no choice but to quit us again.

As we walk off the beach I can see the resignation in the set of his shoulders.

I wonder if he can see the fear in mine.