A/N: could somebody please tell the people running this site that I don't need to see authors' avatars? Please.

You'd think that after being in hell, a man wouldn't be afraid of anything anymore. I mean - you think about it, what could even the worst of the worst of life on earth have to offer that could compare with even one single torture of hell?

Nothing, right?

You'd be surprised.

I was surprised to find out that Sam came back from hell with his fear of clowns not only firmly in place but absolutely magnified over what it used to be.

Turns out that he's friggin' terrified of them.

I mean, this is the guy who's gone toe to toe with every monster anyone has ever heard of, and twice as many that nobody has ever heard of. He's the man who single handedly - and with nothing more than sheer strength of will - forced Ancient Evil back into the pit of hell; the man who endured one hundred and eighty years of hell and a thousand tortures I can imagine and a million more that I can't even begin to imagine, and yet - he's afraid of clowns.

Back then, back when this phobia first started, I never asked what rattled him about clowns, and he never said; he'd just roll his eyes when I ragged on him, and eventually clowns just kind of faded out of our periphery. Sam got old enough to stay at the motel on his own if I went out, and other than the raksasha, just after Dad died, we never had to deal with clowns, killer or otherwise.

But this job – wow. I didn't know and would not have believed that Sam was – could still be –so afraid of clowns. How can a guy six and a half feet tall, nearly thirty years old, built like a fire truck, be afraid of clowns?

And not just afraid. Terrified.

We're at a gas station. I'm filling up our latest hunk-of-junk and Sam is hobbling back to the car from the men's room around back. He gave as good as he got to those clowns, but he took one hell of a beating. His face and his hands got the worst of it, and because I'm an awesome big brother, I open the car door so he doesn't have to.

"Thanks." He says, but he doesn't get in. He leans one elbow on the door and one on the roof and closes his eyes like he's just resting there.

"You want to lie down in the back for a while?"

"No, I'm good. Just - want t'get some air…or…something."

Something. Okay.

I keep filling the tank and thinking about hell and clowns and little brothers.

When I came back from hell, I had two major fears: going back to hell, and losing Sam. I mean - I went to hell because of how much I feared losing Sam, and I came back with that fear still firmly in place. That's a fear I'll have until I'm (finally) well and truly dead.

Sam's biggest fear coming back from hell is that he really didn't come back from hell and that all this is a mirage, a charade foisted on him by Evil Incarnate. I know he deals with it, I see him all the time pressing on his scar and turning away like he's purposely trying to not look at something I can't see; he'll start out-of-nowhere conversations with me and I know it's just to get his mind on something else. But this - clowns - he was openly and unmistakably afraid of.

I know clowns are creepy and fugly and creepy, but what the hell happened that was so bad it would make facing hell less scary than facing a clown?

I mean – those times I dropped him off at Plucky's, yeah, he'd be bored and grumpy and sullen and bitchy, but he never seemed traumatized, he never said anything bad happened to him, never had nightmares. He just one day started avoiding clowns the way I avoided girls' parents, and worse. I swear, even friggin' Ronald McDonald on TV made Sam close his eyes if not walk right out of a room.

I try to think of what Sam has ever been afraid of in his life. And it's not much. He was scared that there was something in his closet or under the bed. Scared of getting a bad grade. Getting a haircut. Disappointing Dad.

No, really. For all the fighting and yelling and finger pointing and name calling and door slamming that went on between them, I figured out a long time ago that Sam actually cared what Dad thought of him. If he hadn't cared so much, he wouldn't have yelled so often. Same with Dad. He wouldn't have yelled half so loud if he hadn't cared quite so much.

Only try to get those two to believe it.

But Sam was afraid of disappointing Dad. Afraid of not mattering to Dad. He was afraid – for all that he griped and glummed and ground his teeth over the life – Sam was afraid of being left out of our life. Yeah, he ran away to college and California, but that was so he could dump us before we could dump him. Because as much as Sam wanted out of the life, he didn't want out of our lives.

That's when it hits me.

"Sam?" I say it suddenly, before I even realize I want to say it. And Sam, whose eyes are closed until I do say it, opens his eyes and looks over at me from his spot between the car and the door like he's asleep standing up.

"Yeah?"

"C'mon." I abandon the gas pump for the moment and walk over to him. I put my hand on his back. "C'mon – lie down or sit down, but down. All right? C'mon."

I dumped him.

It takes a minute but Sam slowly unjoins himself from the car door and the car roof and slightly readjusts his shoulders for the hard job of actually fitting into the car.

"Back seat or front?" I ask. I haven't taken my hand away yet.

"Front. I can recline the seat back if I have to. Front's good."

"Okay. C'mon. Watch your head."

He snorts a laugh at that, but he's whacked his head enough on these string of unfamiliar cars that he's careful as he folds himself into the front seat and settles in with a sigh and closes his eyes again.

I dumped him.

I dumped him off at any available Plucky's with five or ten bucks and a few hours to kill while I pursued more grown up endeavors, without even considering - without even caring - whether he ever enjoyed it or not. Just whenever I needed a break or wanted one, I ditched Sam, no matter what he needed or wanted.

All those times I dumped him at Plucky's, all those times, Sam – whose whole life to that point was tied up with me and Dad and nothing else – all those times Sam suddenly found himself without Dad, without me, surrounded by strangers and creepy clowns.

I fill the tank and cap it and think about whether or not I should go into the gas-n-shop for some quickie food.

"Sammy?" I lean to look in the open driver's side window.

"Hmmm?" He answers without looking at me.

"You want something to eat here, or you think you can hang on 'til we get to an actual diner?"

"Hmm? What?" He opens his eyes and turns to look at me. "Whatever. I thought you were hungry."

"I can wait until we get somewhere."

"Dean – I'm fine. Go get something to eat." And he settles back and closes his eyes again like it's the last word.

Until I say,

"Okay, I'll be right back. Okay?"

And he gives me the look he gave me when I was laughing my ass off the night before at his sparkles. Like I'm crazy and he doesn't know if he should be worried about me.

"Just go." He says, pissy and annoyed, like maybe he thought I was being flip.

So I go in and grab a few things and make it fast and when I get back to the car Sam gives me another once over like he's checking that I came back with at least as many marbles as I left with.

All those times, I dumped Sam at Plucky's with nothing more than a few bucks and the inexact promise that I'd be back by closing time. And I usually was back by closing time. Or at closing time. Or not much later than closing time. And all those times I never worried about anything happening to Sam because he could take care of himself physically. But I never worried about - I never even considered – what might happen to him any other way.

Was Sam terrified of clowns because he was terrified of being left behind, discounted, forgotten, by me? Did the two get melded together in his mind somehow?

"So – what?" He asks when we've been back on the road fifteen minutes or so.

"What – what?"

"Dude – you're rocking the whole 'the world is ending and it's all my fault' vibe. What?"

"Nothing."

"Dean."

I sigh. A really deep sigh.

"I'm sorry I left you at Plucky's."

"Yeah, I know. You said that. Last night."

"I know. But – it's just – I left you there. I mean – you know – are you scared of clowns because – because - I left you there?" I feel stupid saying it, but I say it anyway. "Because clowns personify abandonment to you?"

Well, he looks at me like he is now absolutely sure that I am absolutely crazy.

"No?" He says it half statement, half question, 100% facetious, sounding like I just asked him if scratching my head with a loaded gun is a good idea.

"Then - why? What happened? I mean - you weren't - nobody ever - " A few unpleasant possibilities - and one really horrible possibility - cross my mind, but before I can figure out how to ask it, Sam is shaking his head.

"No." He says that seriously at least, because he knows I'm serious. "Never. I promise."

Thank God for that.

"Then what?" I ask.

"Seriously? I think I was afraid of clowns - because I was allowed to be afraid of them."

I look at him, but he's still being serious.

"Dude - there's plenty of things you're supposed to be afraid of." I remind him.

"Yeah, things I still had to hunt down and run after and kill. If I thought there was something in my closet, I got a gun. Something under my bed, I got salt and an exorcism written out phonetically. A weapon for every monster. But the one time Dad picked me up at one of those places, I told him I didn't like clowns. I thought he was just going tell me some ward or prayer or salt sigil to keep them away but he only said a lot of people don't like clowns. He said it was okay."

Sam shrugs like he's trying to be casual about it, but there's no way he can be feeling casual about that.

"So, I think all my fears of everything else got channeled into clowns because I never had to suck it up and take them on. I could just walk away from them. I could be afraid of them."

"Until this job."

He kind of rolls his eyes and kind of shrugs.

"It was still okay with you that I was scared of them. I mean, you needled me about being afraid of them," that gets said sarcastically, "and you told me why I shouldn't be afraid of them. But you never said I couldn't be afraid of them. So -" He shrugs again and leaves it at that.

"But you're okay, now?" I ask. I have to be a pain in the ass or I won't be able to say anything at all. "We could stop for McDonald's, you'd be okay with that?"

He glares and huffs and slides himself down in the seat as much as he can to get comfy against the door.

"Knock yourself out," he tells me, with the 'before I do' unspoken but implied, I'm sure.

And then he's asleep against the window and I'm a little sorry that he's not afraid of clowns anymore.

The End