Archive of Our Own ^beta

it's like this.
you're four, and your house is burning, and your dad presses your six-month-old brother into your arms, telling you to take him outside as fast as possible, and you remember what he’s said to you before: “you'll help us out with your brother, right? keep sammy safe.” he turns back for your mom and you run as fast as your toddler legs can carry you out to the front yard and turn back to look up at the cheerful life-devouring flames. your brother whines in your arms but you clasp him so tight you can almost feel his heartbeat, the mantra of “keep sammy safe” echoing through your head, and now your dad is there, but he’s alone, and your mother isn’t anywhere, and your dad whisks you further from the house, towards his car, his prized possession, sitting in the front street.

it’s like this.
you’re six, and you haven’t known a true home in years. you’re starting a new school, and your dad tells them that last year you went to school back home but you didn’t. you are the perpetual new kid with no one to play with at recess, and your dad is back at the motel he’s trying to make your home, probably leafing through books and muttering about creatures from your nightmares - or killing them, the dark things that wear human faces. you’ve seen him do it. you sneak off at lunch (“keep sammy safe”) to make sure your brother’s eaten, because you’re not quite sure your dad knows that he can’t feed himself yet.

it’s like this.
you’re twelve, and whereas the boy you talk to at school sometimes (not your friend, never your friend, you always leave too soon to really have a friend,) went home to learn a new pitching style for baseball, you are learning to make your first sawed-off shotgun. you can already shoot one better than most grown men, and you’d never hesitate if someone was in danger (“keep sammy safe”). last week, you killed a man - not a monster, a man - and you try your best to never think about it, but it comes up over and over in your dreams. you line up empty cans behind the motel, then take out your pistol and shoot them all dead center, twenty shots twenty cans. “you can do better,” your dad says, “faster,” and opens a beer. you know this. you can always do better. you open a ginger ale and drink from it in the exact same motion as your dad and his beer.

it’s like this.
you’re fourteen, and desire has crawled up and taken its hold on your brain. you’re fourteen, and you’re becoming a man, and your father is the man so you must be like him. you watch him give two men holding hands the same look he gives a monster before he goes in for the kill, and you think about the bruises on your ribs from when you spoke of men and women in the same breath, the same tone. you learn to give that same look to the men holding hands.

it’s like this.
you’re seventeen, and sometimes in the gym change room you look at the boy who sits in front of you in your history class and desire crawls up inside you like last week’s monster out of the lake, but you remember the bruises, and the looks, and your seventeenth birthday present (a solo hunt, finally, and then you discover who you’re hunting and what they did and you know exactly what your dad is trying to tell you.) so you flirt with all the cheerleaders and indulge in your safe desires, then rush back to the motel of the month with food stolen from the corner store because your father is gone more and more often. you think about what happened when you got caught - you don’t want to think about it, but sometimes late at night, you take those precious memories out. no monsters, no killing, but the words “keep sammy safe” repeating over, and over, and over.

it’s like this.
you’re twenty-two, and your father and your brother only communicate through screaming matches and cold silence and you have to act the diplomat. you know your brother is going away to college soon, and you’ll miss him and worry about him (“keep sammy safe”) but god, you will not miss the yelling. you go out to the bar to forget the screaming and the leaving and let your safe desires consume you. you take a woman who calls you nothing but handsome back to the bed in the room across from your father’s and she touches you like she’s trying to consume you somehow, to rip you apart, and you let her push you down on the bed, and she’s gone before morning. you roll over into the space she might’ve occupied, wishing it was still warm.

it’s like this.
you’re twenty-four, and you usually hunt on your own now, racing around the country in your father’s car with your father’s music that has now become your music blaring. you worry about your brother (“keep sammy safe”) all the time, but no one can know. sometimes you barely know it yourself but there’s always that wiggling pinch in your gut, reminding you of your orders. you still call but receive only one-word answers, so you go to the bar and disappear into giving your body what it desires.

it’s like this.
you’re twenty-six, and your brother hasn’t talked to you in two years (“keep sammy safe”) - you’re not sure if he got a new phone or just blocked your number - but you still send envelopes of $5 bills won in games of late-night pool to an address you desperately hope is his. your father is gone now, though, he went out hunting and you haven’t heard from him in a few days more than normal. he won’t - or can’t - answer your calls, so you’re on your way to that address you so desperately hope is your brother’s, the anticipation of seeing him again warring with concern for your father, but you push it all down and turn your-father’s-turned-your music up until you can’t hear your thoughts anymore.

it’s like this.