"From ghoulies and ghostiesIt was the perfect message for the day I posted the first chapter of Witches' Sabbath, and it also made me think about our characters' fear triggers.
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!"
Warning for minor spoilers for the Caffrey Conversation AU and White Collar.
Even the bravest among us has something that makes us want to race for the exit. For Dean Winchester, it's flying. For his brother Sam, it's clowns. He shrugs off encounters with vampires, witches, and demons. But if clowns show up, he's in trouble. Dean hasn't been forced to fly in a plane yet in Crossed Lines, but Sam's already had one encounter with clowns in Whispers in the Night.
On a deeper level, the brothers' fear for each other's safety is a major trigger. The overriding theme in Supernatural is that Dean and Sam only have each other and they'll do whatever it takes to protect each other. In Witches' Sabbath, Dean senses something is not right with Sam, and it serves as a constant concern. Sam disguises his issues in order to keep his brother from freaking out.
Peter is not easily intimidated. He's aware of the risks in doing his job and accepts them. The criminals and thieves of his FBI-centered world are expanded to include supernatural villains in Crossed Lines, but he maintains his cool with all of them. Nerves of steel, rock-solid, that's our Peter. But everyone has triggers. What are Peter's? Costumes perhaps? They're not precisely a fear, but at the mere mention of donning an unusual outfit, his otherwise non-existent flight instinct kicks into overdrive.
When I asked Penna for her thoughts on the subject, she suggested that Peter's greatest fear is losing El or of her being harmed. We have not put El into a dangerous situation in Caffrey Conversation, but in canon we saw it in the Season 3 episodes "Countdown" and "Checkmate." Another example is the Season 1 episode "Out of the Box" when Peter went to the extreme of punching Fowler because he threatened El's business.
Neal's fears are not as obvious as Sam's fear of clowns. The fear of being locked up in a confined space such as a cell or cage is a trigger. It's one reason why van duty is so onerous for him. He makes jokes about the van, but they're designed to conceal the genuine unease he gets from being restrained to a van's close quarters.
Neal and Peter share the same fear of hurting each other and the ones they love. In canon, Peter was overwhelmed with concern when Neal was forced to flee to escape being arrested by Kramer. The knowledge that he was partially the cause drove Peter to put his job at risk in order to save Neal. In Caffrey Conversation, Peter overreacted when a gun was held on Neal in By the Book.
Our series has many instances of Neal going to extreme lengths to avoid being the cause of someone he loves suffering harm. He fled to Europe to avoid Henry's career being ruined. In The Mirror, he's consumed by guilt that he placed Fiona in the crosshairs of Keller, and that fear causes him to take extraordinary measures. His decisions over how to handle a stolen painting by Georges Braque are guided by his concern for Peter.
It's a dangerous world in both Crossed Lines and Caffrey Conversation. Fear triggers will continue to be inescapable.
Witches' Sabbath on Archive of Our Own
Witches' Sabbath on FanFiction
I'd even go so far as to say fear of failure is a big trigger for Neal. Because he tends to feel responsible when there's a threat to the happiness or the career of his closest friends, failure is simply not an option. He'll go to extreme measures to make sure he doesn't fail them.
ReplyDeleteWhen bad guys like Keller know that about Neal, it means they know how to manipulate him, and how to make him miserable. Imply that his friends are in jeopardy, that it's his fault, and that there's nothing he can do about it... That's enough to spin him out of control.