Work Text:
Sam never quite grew accustomed to staying in one place for too long, and he supposed he had his parents divorce to thank for that. That event was the catalyst that started this whole thing, and if not that, it expedited the process. It started with the move to Santa Carla, to his grandfather's old house in the murder capital of the world .
Sure enough, old demons can’t just be forgotten. Figurative and literal. They follow you wherever you go, slipping through the cracks of every foundation you create for yourself. Finding ways to reinsert themselves to remind you why you were running in the first place. Sam was just lucky enough to have quite a few of those.
The demons.
They tend to unknowingly assist other demons in the undertaking of their target, because evil begets evil and even if it doesn’t overtake the person themselves, it seems to work as some type of dark invitation: “Hey, this person here is deeply scarred and in need of serious help, why don’t you kick them while their down? Take advantage of this momentous opportunity? Turn this in your favor?”
It happened when Max first saw his mom, seeing someone generous and kind, yet lonely and needing, and so he started where Sam’s birth father had left off and worked and hacked away until there was little left of Lucy Emersons soul, her true one anyway. Her living one, if this current version of her even had one at all. But if it did, it’d be a soul belonging to a dead woman.
The pattern continued with Michael. When David saw him wanting, craving release and escape and temptation. And oh boy had he fed on that greed, and supplied and supplied until there was nothing left of Michael Emerson but greed.
And the cycle goes round and round and round again, like that stupid carousel that still sat on the boardwalk in Santa Carla.
For some it was a fun attraction, ever the crowd pleaser for the joyous youth.
For him, it represented regret, and taunted him with its ever lasting presence. Rides on the Santa Carla boardwalk came and went faster than its occupants. There was always something newer, and scarier, and faster to bring in rich teens and big families visiting over the summer- except for that god damned carousel. It stood as persistent and indefinite as his own demons did- and he hated that.
They hadn’t even bothered to change the seats, the chipped paint and markings always a reminder of how if you leave something to fester long enough, the effects of others constantly using and operating and manipulating would begin to have an impression. And let it be known that the result wasn’t pretty.
Those goddamn horses served to scare more than to fascinate at this point, he wasn’t sure how children still enjoyed the damn things.
Had you asked him as a young boy if this was where he pictured his life going, he’d have laughed in your face. He’d always been an animated, overzealous, optimistic person. Not exactly confident, but self assured.
He prided himself on not only all that he was, but all that he could be. The promise of a bright future, an everlasting light that had slowly, and ever so surely been snuffed out but the likes of his past. It’s characters, dark and formidable, yet ever consuming. The types to seep into your subconscious with nasty words vocalized in pretty, soothing voices with promises of things that should be uttered as apt threats instead of pledged as assuring oaths.
However, for Sam, with his traumatizing past and daunting future, they worked as a sort of in between. Assuring threats, yes. That’s what they were.
Representing all that he knew he could be, would be. Temptation biting at his ankles with every fleeing step he took away from Santa Carla, away from his family, away from home. Promising freedom, if only he’d stop. If only he’d turn around and run into the arms of the things from his nightmares. But that freedom was only an illusion, such was the idea that he’d had a choice in whether he’d end up with them or not. They’d ask and beg and plead for him to come back, all while acting as if they weren’t chasing in pursuit of him. Because really, that freedom was limited once the sun came up, and once mundane ground turned holy, and once that satiated feeling in the pits of their stomachs faded into a burning hunger stronger than any desire out there. And really, that illusion of choice he had was much more time sensitive than it was reality.
Will you decide to stop before we find you? Will you stop running so as to allow us to stop chasing? Will you capitulate, or will we force our hand so as for you to surrender?
Although those exact words were never spoken, they were implied by every engine revving in Sam’s nightmares: a promise that their pursuit of him was continuous. Hunting was a vampire's birth right after all.
The sun, thankfully a near daily occurrence in the West Coast, worked as a reminder of the opposite. That while his death seemed imminent, theirs was forever looming. A threat for them, yet for him a happy reminder every new day that their permanence, and power, was also illusory.
That’s why he was such a morning person. He’d become the opposite of what he figured his brother, once other half, represented. Not that they were ever truly so similar to begin with, but the notion stood effective all the same.
He imagined that for every night his brother spent gallivanting around on a bike in all black and leather and blood, taunting every new member of Santa Carla’s revolving door of gangs (thanks to the persisting existence of the Lost Boys), he spent frolicking in the beaming sunlight, being cleansed and washed anew by the salty ocean water (as if it could rid him of all the sins his bloodline had amounted by now).
Every death his brother caused was followed by a prayer from Sam, a visit to whatever church was local to the newest town he occupied.
Every black leather article of clothing his brother dawned was opposed by a new white V neck undershirt (which was all that Sam could afford, but effective all the same). White representing his purity, his untaintedness in contrast to his brother's unvirtuous existence.
The only downside was that if they ever did catch him, he promised himself he’d never be allowed to dawn a single white article of clothing again. At this point, he’d doubted he’d ever be able to bear even the sight of one.
He’d be lying if he said the years of trauma and death and tears hadn’t gotten to him. His anxiety had reached unmatched heights, presenting itself in nervous tics and anxious habits of which he attributed to his everlasting ocd.
Every time he went out in the sun he dawned layers upon layers of sunblock, because while the Sun was his only friend, he’d be damned if he ever dawned a sunburn. It would only serve as a reminder that he and his brother were still alike, still similar in nature even if tried his damn hardest to be nothing like him. And he just could not have that. He wouldn’t allow it.
That anxiety manifested in other ways, ptsd he figured. Every time he saw a cigarette being removed from that familiar red Marlboro packaging, he couldn’t find peace again until his eyes traveled up from the pair of hands to their owner's face. He had to, just had to be sure that when he looked up he wouldn’t be met with stone blue, calculating, haunting eyes.
And if he was looking down, lost in the maze that was his mind, and his eyes caught on a pair of biker boots, he’d lose all control of his feet as they stumbled in the opposite direction. Not looking back until he was far enough, if only to check to make sure they weren’t being dawned by any familiar faces.
God forbid he ran into a male of any sort during odd hours, wearing a singular dangling earring. For if he did he’d be already in the next town by sun up.
So no, Samuel Emerson would not have believed you had you told the young, bright teen he once was that he would be without a home, without a partner, without a life. He existed only in passing glances and temporary, one standing nights where he’d graze his fingertips against the skin of another, for once experiencing what it's like to be lucid, perceptible, simple and feeling .
On those nights he pretended he was still one of them, still like the old him. He’d play house, tricking his many partners, and even himself, that there was promise of a future in those fleeting touches. That he was something other than a transgression to those living and undead alike. That he was still a person.
Because really, Sam Emerson was but a shadow of who he once was.
He supposed in that way he and his family were in fact alike. The only difference? His peter pan, who was disguised in a long black trench coat and leather gloves instead of green tights and a funny hat, always had a handle on his shadow. Allowed him to roam free and wander and frequent the minds of many, tricking and deceiving and preying upon.
Where-as Sam? Sam was the shadow that had somehow gotten away from his true form. And he was forever running, forever fleeing, forever fearing the inevitable forever.
So when he heard his name traveling through the choppy winds, surpassing the thin glass windows and dingy hotel curtains, he wasn’t worried. It wasn’t hard to ignore. He wasn’t Sam anymore, not really.
Where the Vampires were the chasers, he was the runner.
And run he did.
One day, flip flops and tennis sneakers would turn into leather biker boots, and surfboards on waves would turn into wheels on pavement, and the beaming sun would turn into the tickle of moonlight.
But not today.
Maybe tonight, perhaps tomorrow night.
But not today. Never today.