Writing From the Inside

Oh, this is just wonderfully written! And I appear to be in a small group here, but I felt equal sympathy for all three of them, and I didn't think John was being particularly out of bounds, given what he was training them to do. If he was gonna put them in life and death situations to begin with, he [i]owed[/i] it to them to train them til they could survive in those situations. I don't blame Sam in the least for not being able to understand that, and we can see in the story that he's somewhat used to his needs being considered and cared about (the eggs thing)... but John's expecting him to be as easy to train as Dean, and Dean's experiences forged him very differently than Sam's did. He learned loss and the fear of it very early. And Sam's thinking the training is something John will just give up on if he fights against it hard enough, and he's meeting a brick wall because to give up on training Sam, to John, means allowing Sam to potentially get killed. And he can't, can't do that. And if that means denying him soccer and a stable home, if that means giving the kid a belting or two, well, maybe it means Sam will be able to survive later. And John can accept that.

But anyway, the way you showed Sam's frustration and hopelessness was so affecting, and your characterizations of John and Dean were just perfect. Thank you so much for sharing this!