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Who: Sam Winchester and YOU
What: Sam’s headspace
When: Anytime during the headspace plot.
Where: Room 301
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Prose or actionspam, doesn’t matter to me. Establish the day in the subject line if you want, otherwise we’ll just leave it ambiguous.
When you first walk in, it’s almost as though nothing’s different. The room itself looks like a cheap motel room, the kind that Sam spent too much time in as a kid. There one door in the back, that would normally lead to the bathroom, but other than that, there isn’t much there. Two beds, a crappy TV, and a mini fridge, and it all seems very ordinary.
But Sam’s mind is anything but ordinary, and you should be careful where you step. His mind has been invaded before, and he doesn’t want it to happen again. There’s every trap and pitfall a hunter’s mind can come up with-salt lines, Devil’s traps, holy water-each one of them is hiding in there somewhere, just waiting for someone to trip the wires. They’re easy to see if you’re paying attention, but you shouldn’t just walk in without winding up in your own mess of trouble.
If you can make it to the doors, however, the world opens up into a room with four doors, each door leading you deeper. Sam compartmentalizes-he has to, or he would have lost his mind by now-and each door leads to one of those compartments, the things he blocks away to keep himself moving as best he can. He never says he does it well, but he has to function somehow. The doors are blank, unmarked, but even the person on the outside can feel how intensely Sam responds to anything, despite the way he bottles things up. Extreme emotion is the name of the game, and stepping through any of those doors will take that person with him.
The first door is Knowledge. Everything Sam knows about anything is shuffled in there with the hunter mentality and the cool head under pressure. It’s built like a library, his favorite one at Stanford, with books piled as high as the eye can see. Sam also has a vivid imagination, though, and he knows a lot about things that aren’t so nice, so be careful which books you open. You never know what might pop out of them. Another trap door? Maybe. Don’t push it.
The second is Anger. If you decide to open the door, it will blow open with a force that you won’t expect. The cool hunter thinking may be placed elsewhere, but the fighter in Sam, the thing that drives him to do the things he does is all behind door number two. Every kill he’s ever made-Gordon, Brady, Jake, Ruby, Lilith-every evil thing he’s hunted, every bad guy he’s stared down, it’s all there, looking through the eyes of a man who at the time, could only see red. These memories are like a patchwork of blood, each one running into the other. You’ll also see every time he’s died, the defiance as he stared down Isis, the cold comfort of Heaven, followed by the stomach turning twist of Zachariah with his mother-fake or not, the reaction is still the same. If you stay long enough, you may get memories feel distant, like he’s watching a movie in his own mind-memories from when he was possessed by Meg, or by Lucifer. When those memories pass, the anger only intensifies pressing down as Sam had struggled to find his way back to the top again. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes he didn’t. If you stay long enough, you might catch an all too brief glance of Hell, but really-most people wouldn’t be able to stomach that much.
The third is Guilt. It’s similar to the room before, but it’s more pain than anger, more sadness and loss than something pushing you forward. This room is a pile of death scenes-there’s been so much death in Sam’s life that naming names is pointless. It just piles, one after the other, starting with his mother, and ending with Castiel and Bobby, shortly before he managed to regain control from Lucifer. Mixed in with the memories from home are memories of Paradisa as well-pictures of Elle being electrocuted by her own ability, Claire covered in blood as the blade comes down again-anything that Sam feels he could have prevented, that he should have been stronger to fight against, and the punishments that came with them. There’s a pressure on your shoulders the entire time you’re there, the weight that Sam carries with him every day, and the one thing in his life that he tries to shove down before he carries it too far.
The final room is Safety. On the surface, it’s like an old family scrapbook, though the Winchesters were never the type to keep one. Except the scrapbook is picture frames, plastered over a long corridor that leads to another door. This room is love, the strong affection and protectiveness that Sam feels for his friends and family. All the pictures in this room are people that were important to him, smiling faces and happy memories. They start with his father, early memories of when he was still a child and John made him feel protected and safe, and then they slowly build into friends that he’s made, both in Paradisa and at home, the women he loves, both lost and found, and it all comes to a head with pictures of Dean, memories of he and his brother together-long days on the road, prank wars, and Dean just being there-the one consistent person he could trust to have his back. Here, the memories take a bit of a bittersweet edge, with Dean being gone from the castle, but the love is still there.
If you continue to make your way forward, you’ll find the safest place in Sam’s mind, the place where he goes to escape from everything else that the other doors contain. The door opens, and suddenly, you’re facing the driver’s side of the Impala, with the empty front seat there for you to take. If you decide to open that door, it’s also where you’ll find Sam and the dogs, Cooper sitting on the front seat next to him, while Alice is curled up in the back.
If you happen to get lost in one of the other rooms, however, he’ll also come and find you. Wouldn’t want people getting stuck there, after all.
What: Sam’s headspace
When: Anytime during the headspace plot.
Where: Room 301
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Prose or actionspam, doesn’t matter to me. Establish the day in the subject line if you want, otherwise we’ll just leave it ambiguous.
When you first walk in, it’s almost as though nothing’s different. The room itself looks like a cheap motel room, the kind that Sam spent too much time in as a kid. There one door in the back, that would normally lead to the bathroom, but other than that, there isn’t much there. Two beds, a crappy TV, and a mini fridge, and it all seems very ordinary.
But Sam’s mind is anything but ordinary, and you should be careful where you step. His mind has been invaded before, and he doesn’t want it to happen again. There’s every trap and pitfall a hunter’s mind can come up with-salt lines, Devil’s traps, holy water-each one of them is hiding in there somewhere, just waiting for someone to trip the wires. They’re easy to see if you’re paying attention, but you shouldn’t just walk in without winding up in your own mess of trouble.
If you can make it to the doors, however, the world opens up into a room with four doors, each door leading you deeper. Sam compartmentalizes-he has to, or he would have lost his mind by now-and each door leads to one of those compartments, the things he blocks away to keep himself moving as best he can. He never says he does it well, but he has to function somehow. The doors are blank, unmarked, but even the person on the outside can feel how intensely Sam responds to anything, despite the way he bottles things up. Extreme emotion is the name of the game, and stepping through any of those doors will take that person with him.
The first door is Knowledge. Everything Sam knows about anything is shuffled in there with the hunter mentality and the cool head under pressure. It’s built like a library, his favorite one at Stanford, with books piled as high as the eye can see. Sam also has a vivid imagination, though, and he knows a lot about things that aren’t so nice, so be careful which books you open. You never know what might pop out of them. Another trap door? Maybe. Don’t push it.
The second is Anger. If you decide to open the door, it will blow open with a force that you won’t expect. The cool hunter thinking may be placed elsewhere, but the fighter in Sam, the thing that drives him to do the things he does is all behind door number two. Every kill he’s ever made-Gordon, Brady, Jake, Ruby, Lilith-every evil thing he’s hunted, every bad guy he’s stared down, it’s all there, looking through the eyes of a man who at the time, could only see red. These memories are like a patchwork of blood, each one running into the other. You’ll also see every time he’s died, the defiance as he stared down Isis, the cold comfort of Heaven, followed by the stomach turning twist of Zachariah with his mother-fake or not, the reaction is still the same. If you stay long enough, you may get memories feel distant, like he’s watching a movie in his own mind-memories from when he was possessed by Meg, or by Lucifer. When those memories pass, the anger only intensifies pressing down as Sam had struggled to find his way back to the top again. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes he didn’t. If you stay long enough, you might catch an all too brief glance of Hell, but really-most people wouldn’t be able to stomach that much.
The third is Guilt. It’s similar to the room before, but it’s more pain than anger, more sadness and loss than something pushing you forward. This room is a pile of death scenes-there’s been so much death in Sam’s life that naming names is pointless. It just piles, one after the other, starting with his mother, and ending with Castiel and Bobby, shortly before he managed to regain control from Lucifer. Mixed in with the memories from home are memories of Paradisa as well-pictures of Elle being electrocuted by her own ability, Claire covered in blood as the blade comes down again-anything that Sam feels he could have prevented, that he should have been stronger to fight against, and the punishments that came with them. There’s a pressure on your shoulders the entire time you’re there, the weight that Sam carries with him every day, and the one thing in his life that he tries to shove down before he carries it too far.
The final room is Safety. On the surface, it’s like an old family scrapbook, though the Winchesters were never the type to keep one. Except the scrapbook is picture frames, plastered over a long corridor that leads to another door. This room is love, the strong affection and protectiveness that Sam feels for his friends and family. All the pictures in this room are people that were important to him, smiling faces and happy memories. They start with his father, early memories of when he was still a child and John made him feel protected and safe, and then they slowly build into friends that he’s made, both in Paradisa and at home, the women he loves, both lost and found, and it all comes to a head with pictures of Dean, memories of he and his brother together-long days on the road, prank wars, and Dean just being there-the one consistent person he could trust to have his back. Here, the memories take a bit of a bittersweet edge, with Dean being gone from the castle, but the love is still there.
If you continue to make your way forward, you’ll find the safest place in Sam’s mind, the place where he goes to escape from everything else that the other doors contain. The door opens, and suddenly, you’re facing the driver’s side of the Impala, with the empty front seat there for you to take. If you decide to open that door, it’s also where you’ll find Sam and the dogs, Cooper sitting on the front seat next to him, while Alice is curled up in the back.
If you happen to get lost in one of the other rooms, however, he’ll also come and find you. Wouldn’t want people getting stuck there, after all.