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[imnot_likeyou]

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.

Comments

[autophoenix]

After everything they'd talked about the last time Claire had seen him, she couldn't help but want to check up on Sam now that it seemed like the castle was taking the opportunity to screw with them all again. He seemed altogether at the end of his rope with it

[imnot_likeyou]

Sam felt her more than he heard her, but it took him some time. If anything, it was Alice whining that she wanted to go out that got him up and moving than someone else poking around his mind. There had been enough about this week that he just wanted to hide away and not deal with everyone else.

He wandered back into the main area, two dogs padding at his side when he realized that one of the doors were open. He sighed, moving closer and blinking in surprise when he saw who it was.

"Claire," he said, breathing a sigh of relief that she didn't pick the door with the memories of him going evil. "Hi."

And to add to that, this would be Alice, wandering over to say hello as well.

[autophoenix]

Claire's head whipped around when she heard Sam behind her, eyes going wide with surprise -- and like she was caught doing something wrong. Which, you know, she was, admittedly. Snooping through someone's head without permission. She opened her mouth and dug for an excuse -- which wasn't all that hard to find.

"Sorry, I was just -- I didn't know where you were. I knocked …" She shrugged apologetically, her eyes slowly glancing around her, investigating. But, Alice was licking her hands and trying to stick her snout against Claire's leg to get attention, so she eventually let the dog win out and crouched to pet her. "Quite the maze you've got going." Because, at its core, that's what organization looked like to pretty much anybody who didn't understand the system. "What's with the choose your destiny doors?"

[imnot_likeyou]

Sam would have been more upset and on edge if it was someone he didn't know. Considering this was a friend, he was going to assume that she didn't mean any harm. Curiosity got the better of people. It happened.

"It's okay," he said with a shrug of his own. Cooper was milling around his ankles until he got him to sit still for a second, and then he looked back up again. "I've had my head screwed with. I think this is more self-protection than anything else. Just be glad you didn't pick the first one." And he pointed in the direction of the door he meant. "Pretty much everything I know about every son of a bitch I've ever hunted is in there. As well as ... my imagination."

He'll let you draw your own conclusions from that, Claire.

[autophoenix]

Claire glanced over toward the first door, forehead creasing with concern at the frankness of his comment. Sam's bluntness was something she was starting to realize was pretty telling to how damaged he was, and she couldn't help but feel like behind those doors was probably the real view of what that damage looked like. Imagining it was kind of, well, frightening

[imnot_likeyou]

Sam's damage was pretty evenly spread out, to be honest. The only place that was actually safe from that whole mess was the room with the Impala, and that wasn't the one that Claire had found. But yeah -- there was no way around Sam being damaged. Their life didn't let them out otherwise.

"I wish my head was that simple," he sighed. "Protecting yourself from everyone else all the time is ... exhausting." Always being worried about who was in your head, what they were doing, what was coming next -- it's not the easiest way to live. Paranoia about whether or not your thoughts are your own only makes things harder.

[autophoenix]

"Then, why do it?" The words came out before she meant them to, but she didn't take them back. Her brow slowly furrowed in confusion. She didn't mean to come for the sake of psychoanalyzing him, but if that happened to be where it went … "Holding all of this inside, keeping what you've been through to yourself … it's too much for one person to take. Maybe 'protecting yourself' from other people is really only hurting you."

And maybe that was exactly what the castle was getting at with this. Which made her a hypocrite -- she couldn't pretend she wasn't, but she could at least try to help Sam. Even if she was too stubborn and isolated to help herself.

[imnot_likeyou]

He sighed, before shaking his head. "Because if I don't, people only use it against me. I mean, I've been possessed before. If you don't find ways it keep what you don't want them to know away from them, they'll ... destroy you with your own two hands."

He never wanted to be this closed off away from everyone. Circumstances made him this way, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Not then, and not now. Letting down his guard only leads to trouble.