![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Do Winchesters Dream Of Electric Impalas? (Part 3/3)
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG (Language)
Fandom: SPN
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Words: 3,610
Category: Gen AU
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: Dean was made to be a Big Brother.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
When he finally turned the car around, after Sammy had screamed bloody murder for four straight hours, John had been expecting to have to go all the way back to the motel for the Imitant. He’d assumed Dean would still be standing in the room, facing the door, possibly looking crushed after being abandoned exactly as he had when John had bundled Sammy up and left.
For a few minutes it didn’t register that Sammy’s screaming had switched to something else, mostly because John was half-deaf by that time. Sammy was banging on the window with his stuffed sheep and desperately trying to get his father’s attention.
“Dean!” he insisted. “Gone passed Dean, Daddy. Go back!”
John took the Impala around in a wide loop, the road deserted at three in the morning. It was pitch black out with no benefit of street lights, so he wasn’t sure what Sammy had thought he’d seen but he also didn’t want the screaming to resume before he could prove to Sammy that whatever shadow he’d spied wasn’t actually the robot they’d left behind.
He was surprised as hell to find, in fact, that it was.
Dean stood by the side of the road, his jacket clasped around his small body. He was pointed in the direction they’d just been heading from but had paused in his trek when he’d spotted them. Sammy had undone his seatbelt before John could even pull the car to a complete stop and as soon as they’d drawn even with Dean, Sammy pushed open the back door and tumbled out.
John watched Dean open his arms and Sammy jump into them, beaming. Dean moved back towards the car, Sammy clinging to him for all he was worth. He paused when he got to the open door and just looked at John. John nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough. Dean pushed Sammy back into the car and clambered in after.
It could have been coincidence but John was pretty sure it wasn’t. Dean had been following them, and John was starting to understand that he would follow Sammy to the ends of the earth.
John caught Dean’s eyes in the rear vision mirror.
“Alright?” he asked, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking.
“Yes, sir,” Dean responded.
000
The Rawhead was supposed to have just been a detour and Dean didn’t realise he was standing in three inches of water when he’d shot it with the modified tazer.
At least, that’s what he told Sam as Sam struggled to manhandle Dean up the rickety stairs and out which was a feat in itself considering Dean weighed about the same as a small car.
“Don’t try and… Jesus… don’t try and tell me… how are you this heavy, I mean really?” Sam gasped. Dean was trying to help but there was something misfiring and his legs just wouldn’t cooperate. “Don’t try and tell me you didn’t know exactly what you were doing,” Sam finally managed when they hit the ground floor.
“I really didn’t-”
“Dean, I know you weigh variables for every course of action. You were cornered, it was strong and I was coming back down the stairs. You couldn’t risk it dismissing you and going after me so you shot it even though you were standing in a goddamned puddle.”
Rawheads went for blood and marrow, the younger the better. It would’ve maybe charged Dean initially, confused by the scent of the kids or Sam on him, on his clothes, but it would’ve changed tack almost immediately. Dean was person-shaped but to something like a Rawhead, he definitely wasn’t a person. It had happened a couple of times before, Dean not able to make himself a target because to the monsters he was about as distracting as a lamp or a desk chair.
“I’ll be fine, just need to shake this off,” Dean said and Sam was pretty sure that Dean knew exactly how much damage had been done and what the possibility was of recovery. Of all the things he’d picked up from their dad, Dean certainly emulated John’s stoic attitude in the face of his own mortality. He could be walking on a smashed leg and claim it was nothing more than a hangnail.
Dean could certainly take a lot of punishment but although he liked to act like it, he wasn’t indestructible by any stretch of the imagination.
They got back to the motel even though through his exhaustion, Sam wasn’t exactly sure how. He dropped Dean on the nearest bed and then paced the room as Dean gritted his teeth and his limbs twitched of their own accord. “You still going to tell me you’re fine?” Sam prodded as the tremors got worse.
“Just need… to… collect myself,” Dean managed although his words were starting to slur.
“I’ve gotta do something,” Sam said, digging hands into his hair.
“Nothing… you ca…an..”
“Dean?”
“Sammy? Don’t ride your bike…without a helmet… dangerous kiddo.”
“Dean!”
“Dad’ll be back soon, I swear. We just have to sit tight. Stay-”
000
“-still, goddamn it. Quit squirming.”
“You’re taking too much off.”
“I’m not. I know exactly how much I’m taking off. It’ll be exactly short enough to the inch to make everyone stop thinking you’re my sister.”
“De-an,” Sam whined, ducking and weaving. Dean wrestled Sam back into the chair and the towel around his neck. Sam squirmed but finally seemed to have admitted defeat because he merely frowned hard, harder still when the first locks fell to the floor. He kicked his feet disconsolately as Dean made quick work of the haircut and really, it had been getting hard to see, especially when they were running drills. It was summer and the back of his neck itched all the time, losing the hair there was actually a relief.
He’d never admit it, though.
“How come you don’t have to go to school?” Sam asked, giving up on his brooding silence that ever only lasted a few seconds.
“Because I know everything already, dumbass,” Dean said, moving to the front and putting a hand under Sam’s chin to tilt his head up so he could check out his handiwork.
“Why are we so weird?”
“Hey, where’d that come from?” Dean asked, using the hand he’d already had under Sam’s chin to bring Sam’s face up further so they were eye to eye. Sam rolled his and tried to move his head away, duck his face but Dean’s grip wouldn’t let him. “Sammy?”
“It’s just…” Sam brought a hand up from under his towel and scratched over his newly shorn head and then fingered his ears, his frown resurfacing. They always stuck out if his hair was too short. “We move all the time and Dad doesn’t have a real job and you…”
“Me what?”
“You know.”
“Am I wearing a shiny turban? Do I look like a mind reader? Me what?”
“Kids at school we’re talking about how there used to be fake people. Not like the robots at the gas station but ones with skin and hair and…” Sam fidgeted for a moment, suddenly intent on his hands.
“Hey, look at me,” Dean prompted, taking one of Sam’s hands and knocking it against his head. “Don’t I feel real to you?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“We’re not like other people, s’true,” Dean said, bringing Sam’s hand down to his chest. There wasn’t the regular thump-ump of a heart under the skin but the faint burr of vibration was as familiar to Sam as his own heartbeat. “We’re Winchesters, me n’ you. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“Okay,” Sam said.
“Now, how about just the tiniest bit shorter, really show off those handlebars you call ears.”
“Dean!” Sam squeaked, leaping from his chair and taking off, the towel around his neck trailing like a cape behind him.
000
“What’d you do?”
Sam startled awake. He’d been on the go for about thirty-six hours and it had finally caught up with him. As soon as his ass had hit the seat in the small room with the peeling paint, he’d been out. Dean was standing in the doorway of the empty shop, the closest place Sam had been able to find to hole up for the few hours he’d needed with the power still on. Dean had a hand on his chest and he was rubbing almost compulsively.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, coming to his feet but halting when he saw Dean’s face. “N-nothing. I found a guy who-”
“Sam, what did you do?”
“It might feel a little different at first because he only had an C-series still mostly intact but, y’know, it was practically unused and-”
“Sam!” Dean barked, advancing and Sam backed up until he felt wall behind his back and still Dean kept coming. He didn’t stop until he’d fisted hands into Sam’s shirt and lifted him clear off his feet. Sam winced as the chipped wall scraped the skin of his shoulders and lower back. “What did you do?”
“There was a guy, a Doctor Phillips Bobby knew. He had a couple of decommed C-series Imitants and he was able to fix you.” Sam’s feet drummed the wall as he scrabbled for purchase and for the first time in his life he was scared.
Of Dean.
“Something’s different. Something isn’t me. He replaced something and I can’t…” Dean suddenly seemed to realise what he was doing and his hands opened. Sam stumbled a little when he was freed so abruptly and he would’ve gone onto his ass if Dean hadn’t snapped a hand out and smacked him against the wall again, palm flat against Sam’s chest. “It’s not me anymore. I can feel…”
“I don’t get it Dean. He said you just needed a refit because some of your connections were fried and it was degrading your central system. He said you only had a few days before you’d shut down completely.”
“I can feel her inside. She was a C-5 and she had a little sister named Cathy and she doesn’t understand why Cathy went away and it’s dark, it’s so dark.”
“Dean, I don’t understand,” Sam said, trying to reach out but Dean stepped away, hand back on his chest.
“What if I can’t… what if you were in here,” Dean said, panic showing on his face. “You can’t just take something out.”
“Dean, look at me,” Sam said, moving back into Dean’s space and taking his wrist gently, prying his hand away and putting it over his own heart. “You’re in here,” he said and then he was smiling as he moved a hand to Dean. “And I’m in here,” he said, tapping Dean’s temple. “And here,” he said moving a hand to clap Dean’s bicep. “And maybe a little here,” he added, poking Dean in the belly and Dean seemed unable to help it.
He laughed.
The smile died on his face though as Sam watched. “She was alive Sam,” he said, putting hands up to his temples. “They killed her for me, to fix me.”
“Dean, it was just-” Sam started and then when Dean’s head flicked up and his eyes narrowed Sam realised what he’d nearly said. What it meant.
“A robot?”
000
“I’ve figured it out,” Sam said, nudging their bedroom door open with his foot, face buried in a book. When he looked up over the cover Dean raised an eyebrow at him, top half of him sprawled on the bed closest to the window and his feet kicked up on the other bed. Their Dad would give Dean hell for having shoes on the sheets but he was currently holed up in the kitchen, pouring over some of Bobby’s books and muttering to himself.
“The whole bra thing? Cause I gotta tell you Sam, most girls your age have already figured them out.”
“Har har,” Sam sighed, flopping down on his bed after pushing Dean’s feet off. “No I mean it. I know how to make you a person.”
Dean sat up, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his chin into one hand. “Sammy, we’ve been through this already.”
“Yeah, I know. But don’t you wanna have a heart and a brain-”
“If anyone around here doesn’t have a brain, it’s you.”
“I’m serious,” Sam said, scowling. “There’s heaps of things that are real from stories. Werewolves, ghosts, stuff like that? Why can’t good stuff be real too?”
“You lost me.”
“We just need to find, y’know, a blue fairy.”
“Ah,” Dean said, rolling his eyes and flopping back on his bed. “Now you’re making perfect sense.”
“No, listen,” Sam insisted, crossing the space between their beds and thumping the book he had onto Dean’s stomach. “There’s all kinds of things that might work. There’re these things called Dijins and they grant wishes, Dean.”
“Hey, that’s Dad’s journal.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you. We can find one of these guys and like, trap him and only let him go if he grants us a wish.”
“You gonna use a box, a stick and a piece of cheese?”
“Dad’s gotta have something else in here,” Sam said, flipping pages until Dean snatched the journal out of his hands. “Hey!”
“You shouldn’t be messing with this stuff. I’m real enough, I wish you would just drop it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because some day I’m gonna want to do normal stuff. Y’know, go to college and get a job and…”
“And?”
“Get married.”
“So?”
“So?” Sam asked, sounding impatient. “So you won’t be able to hang around me all the time and that’s… I mean, that’s all you do.”
“Oh.”
“But if we make you alive, then you can do that stuff too.”
000
Sam had been staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours.
“Dean?”
“Hmm?” Dean sounded muffled, half-asleep. He didn’t actually sleep, or so he claimed. He called it internalising but he did it on a bed flat on his stomach with his hands under the pillow and Sam could’ve sworn he’d heard a snore a time or two.
“How’d… how’d it feel for you when I left?”
Sam sensed Dean hesitate. He knew it was pretty unfair to question Dean, that when he asked something straight out Dean had to fight every fibre of his being not to answer, even if it was something Sam was better off not knowing. He abused their relationship and what Dean was more often than he was strictly comfortable with but sometimes he couldn’t help it. Dean, for all that he was, still managed to be a closed book some of the time.
“You mean when you went to Stanford?”
“Yeah. I know you were helping Dad and you were doing hunts solo but… I mean, how did that feel for you?”
“Are you trying to check in some half-assed, roundabout way if I’ll be okay on my own again?” Dean asked. In the half-light Sam saw Dean’s head come off his pillow and there was the faint glitter of Dean’s eyes, reflective in the dark like a cat’s.
Sam knew that Dean could see him perfectly, that shadow didn’t benefit him the way it benefited Dean in being able to hide expressions. He supposed it was only fair considering Dean couldn’t actively lie to Sam. They both had their own ways of hiding the truth if they needed to.
“No, I just… well, sort of.”
“Christ, Sammy,” Dean sighed, sitting up and scrubbing a hand over his face. His feet hit the floor with two gentle thumps and his hair was sticking up at the back like a kid’s. Not for the first time Sam wondered just exactly how Dean wasn’t…
“You planning on taking off, because I would really like a head’s up if you are. And not this walking-on-eggshells tap-dance you have going.”
“What? No, not right now. Jesus, I’m just… when I’m gone. I was just wondering if you would be okay.”
“When you’re gone?” Dean asked, and now he sounded puzzled. Dean got metaphor, he got innuendo and almost all other subtle form of communication but he could still be thrown by conflicting ideas. Sam was saying he wasn’t leaving but that he’d be gone at some point and Sam realised that he would’ve simply stumped Dean with that.
“You’re going to… endure I guess for a long time. You won’t get old like me. I think according to a couple of things Dad said you’re pretty much at the age you’ll be from now on. At some point I’ll… I’m going to, if my luck holds out, get old and… you know. I just think about it sometimes is all. What you’ll do. If you’ll be fine.”
Dean finally seemed to get what Sam was hinting at and he stilled. Sam didn’t need to see his face to understand that he’d hit on something without really meaning to, that maybe Dean had been avoiding. When Dean said, “You don’t have to worry about that,” in a dismissive tone and went to lie down again, Sam sat up quickly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Can we just drop it? It’s late and don’t think I haven’t noticed the total lack of sleep you’ve been working on lately.”
“Dean!”
“Sam, honestly. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“I swear, if you don’t tell me what you mean…” Sam didn’t really know how to finish the threat as he watched Dean flump onto his back and put his hands behind his head.
“I’m a Big Brother, Sam,” Dean said, tone quiet. Despite this, Sam heard the capitol letters as clear as day. Still, it was sometimes easier to play ignorant with Dean because he would end up explaining himself and revealing more than he meant to in the process.
“I know you’re my big brother but that still doesn’t-”
“No, Sam. I’m a Big Brother. I’m not meant to… you know, last.”
Sam felt everything in him grow cold. When he’d been old enough to start asking the hard questions, like why the sky was blue, why birds could fly and he couldn’t and more specifically about Dean, his father had gotten cagey about certain aspects. The D-19 manuals had survived the fire in their little metal case but his dad, after reading and committing the most important aspects to memory, had destroyed them. Sam, had in some small way always suspected there would’ve been something in those manuals that he wouldn’t like.
“Dean… you’ve gotta… you gotta tell me what that means.”
Sam heard Dean sigh, low and long. “I’m a Big Brother. A Protection Unit and Companion. You know when you asked me about going to college, how you couldn’t take me along like Linus with his blanket?” When Sam nodded slowly, Dean continued. “The… makers thought of that. Big Brothers have a shelf life.”
“How long?” Sam asked, surprised himself by how hollow and shocky his voice sounded.
“Sam-”
“How long, Dean?” Sam repeated, swallowing hard and gripping his hands so tight into fists he could feel the nails cut into the flesh of his palms.
“About twelve more months,” Dean said and Sam felt his jaw unhinge, the tiny gasp that escaped. “Actually, eleven months, three weeks, seventeen days and forty three minutes, give or take,” Dean added, letting a small snort escape, trying for brevity that fell flat between them.
Sam smacked hands to his face for a moment, then rubbed his head over vigorously. Sam had spent most of his life wondering what Dean would do without him, always in the back of his mind the fact that Dean was this practically indestructible machine that would just keep on truckin’ long after most people kicked off. In some abstract way it registered that Dean as far as he knew was one of the last Big Brothers and that Sam just hadn’t seen any others. He never really thought too hard about where they were because he just assumed they would be like Dean, functioning like a member of society, non-descript enough to be passed in the street without any evidence of the fact that they were other than an average Joe.
“Well, I guess we know what we have to do then,” Sam said finally and Dean blinked at him. He supposed he didn’t know what Dean had been expecting from his little revelation but it wasn’t this determined brusqueness. But, from what Dean had told him, they didn’t have much time.
000
“I just want you to have a purpose-”
“You’re my purpose!” Dean snapped and usually when he said something as bald as that, he would duck his head, stare at his shoes but this time he just crossed his arms over his chest and glared, defiant.
“Just… stay with Dad. He needs you more than me,” Sam said, wringing the straps of his backpack in his hands, feeling the fabric twist in his fists.
“You know I’ll do anything you ask me to,” Dean said and Sam understood it for what it was, an offer rather than acceptance.
Sam could see it too. Dean would get a job at a local garage and they’d get an apartment together and Sam would be what he always was while at college.
Cared for.
Safe.
He needed to get out into the world and he wasn’t quite sure how to communicate that to Dean.
He didn’t need his Big Brother around, holding his hand.
000
Eleven months, three weeks, seventeen days and thirty-eight minutes of not much time.
“Let’s go find ourselves a blue fairy.”
----
Now Wait For Last Year
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG (Language)
Fandom: SPN
By:
kellifer_ficWords: 3,610
Category: Gen AU
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: Dean was made to be a Big Brother.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
When he finally turned the car around, after Sammy had screamed bloody murder for four straight hours, John had been expecting to have to go all the way back to the motel for the Imitant. He’d assumed Dean would still be standing in the room, facing the door, possibly looking crushed after being abandoned exactly as he had when John had bundled Sammy up and left.
For a few minutes it didn’t register that Sammy’s screaming had switched to something else, mostly because John was half-deaf by that time. Sammy was banging on the window with his stuffed sheep and desperately trying to get his father’s attention.
“Dean!” he insisted. “Gone passed Dean, Daddy. Go back!”
John took the Impala around in a wide loop, the road deserted at three in the morning. It was pitch black out with no benefit of street lights, so he wasn’t sure what Sammy had thought he’d seen but he also didn’t want the screaming to resume before he could prove to Sammy that whatever shadow he’d spied wasn’t actually the robot they’d left behind.
He was surprised as hell to find, in fact, that it was.
Dean stood by the side of the road, his jacket clasped around his small body. He was pointed in the direction they’d just been heading from but had paused in his trek when he’d spotted them. Sammy had undone his seatbelt before John could even pull the car to a complete stop and as soon as they’d drawn even with Dean, Sammy pushed open the back door and tumbled out.
John watched Dean open his arms and Sammy jump into them, beaming. Dean moved back towards the car, Sammy clinging to him for all he was worth. He paused when he got to the open door and just looked at John. John nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough. Dean pushed Sammy back into the car and clambered in after.
It could have been coincidence but John was pretty sure it wasn’t. Dean had been following them, and John was starting to understand that he would follow Sammy to the ends of the earth.
John caught Dean’s eyes in the rear vision mirror.
“Alright?” he asked, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking.
“Yes, sir,” Dean responded.
The Rawhead was supposed to have just been a detour and Dean didn’t realise he was standing in three inches of water when he’d shot it with the modified tazer.
At least, that’s what he told Sam as Sam struggled to manhandle Dean up the rickety stairs and out which was a feat in itself considering Dean weighed about the same as a small car.
“Don’t try and… Jesus… don’t try and tell me… how are you this heavy, I mean really?” Sam gasped. Dean was trying to help but there was something misfiring and his legs just wouldn’t cooperate. “Don’t try and tell me you didn’t know exactly what you were doing,” Sam finally managed when they hit the ground floor.
“I really didn’t-”
“Dean, I know you weigh variables for every course of action. You were cornered, it was strong and I was coming back down the stairs. You couldn’t risk it dismissing you and going after me so you shot it even though you were standing in a goddamned puddle.”
Rawheads went for blood and marrow, the younger the better. It would’ve maybe charged Dean initially, confused by the scent of the kids or Sam on him, on his clothes, but it would’ve changed tack almost immediately. Dean was person-shaped but to something like a Rawhead, he definitely wasn’t a person. It had happened a couple of times before, Dean not able to make himself a target because to the monsters he was about as distracting as a lamp or a desk chair.
“I’ll be fine, just need to shake this off,” Dean said and Sam was pretty sure that Dean knew exactly how much damage had been done and what the possibility was of recovery. Of all the things he’d picked up from their dad, Dean certainly emulated John’s stoic attitude in the face of his own mortality. He could be walking on a smashed leg and claim it was nothing more than a hangnail.
Dean could certainly take a lot of punishment but although he liked to act like it, he wasn’t indestructible by any stretch of the imagination.
They got back to the motel even though through his exhaustion, Sam wasn’t exactly sure how. He dropped Dean on the nearest bed and then paced the room as Dean gritted his teeth and his limbs twitched of their own accord. “You still going to tell me you’re fine?” Sam prodded as the tremors got worse.
“Just need… to… collect myself,” Dean managed although his words were starting to slur.
“I’ve gotta do something,” Sam said, digging hands into his hair.
“Nothing… you ca…an..”
“Dean?”
“Sammy? Don’t ride your bike…without a helmet… dangerous kiddo.”
“Dean!”
“Dad’ll be back soon, I swear. We just have to sit tight. Stay-”
“-still, goddamn it. Quit squirming.”
“You’re taking too much off.”
“I’m not. I know exactly how much I’m taking off. It’ll be exactly short enough to the inch to make everyone stop thinking you’re my sister.”
“De-an,” Sam whined, ducking and weaving. Dean wrestled Sam back into the chair and the towel around his neck. Sam squirmed but finally seemed to have admitted defeat because he merely frowned hard, harder still when the first locks fell to the floor. He kicked his feet disconsolately as Dean made quick work of the haircut and really, it had been getting hard to see, especially when they were running drills. It was summer and the back of his neck itched all the time, losing the hair there was actually a relief.
He’d never admit it, though.
“How come you don’t have to go to school?” Sam asked, giving up on his brooding silence that ever only lasted a few seconds.
“Because I know everything already, dumbass,” Dean said, moving to the front and putting a hand under Sam’s chin to tilt his head up so he could check out his handiwork.
“Why are we so weird?”
“Hey, where’d that come from?” Dean asked, using the hand he’d already had under Sam’s chin to bring Sam’s face up further so they were eye to eye. Sam rolled his and tried to move his head away, duck his face but Dean’s grip wouldn’t let him. “Sammy?”
“It’s just…” Sam brought a hand up from under his towel and scratched over his newly shorn head and then fingered his ears, his frown resurfacing. They always stuck out if his hair was too short. “We move all the time and Dad doesn’t have a real job and you…”
“Me what?”
“You know.”
“Am I wearing a shiny turban? Do I look like a mind reader? Me what?”
“Kids at school we’re talking about how there used to be fake people. Not like the robots at the gas station but ones with skin and hair and…” Sam fidgeted for a moment, suddenly intent on his hands.
“Hey, look at me,” Dean prompted, taking one of Sam’s hands and knocking it against his head. “Don’t I feel real to you?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“We’re not like other people, s’true,” Dean said, bringing Sam’s hand down to his chest. There wasn’t the regular thump-ump of a heart under the skin but the faint burr of vibration was as familiar to Sam as his own heartbeat. “We’re Winchesters, me n’ you. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“Okay,” Sam said.
“Now, how about just the tiniest bit shorter, really show off those handlebars you call ears.”
“Dean!” Sam squeaked, leaping from his chair and taking off, the towel around his neck trailing like a cape behind him.
“What’d you do?”
Sam startled awake. He’d been on the go for about thirty-six hours and it had finally caught up with him. As soon as his ass had hit the seat in the small room with the peeling paint, he’d been out. Dean was standing in the doorway of the empty shop, the closest place Sam had been able to find to hole up for the few hours he’d needed with the power still on. Dean had a hand on his chest and he was rubbing almost compulsively.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, coming to his feet but halting when he saw Dean’s face. “N-nothing. I found a guy who-”
“Sam, what did you do?”
“It might feel a little different at first because he only had an C-series still mostly intact but, y’know, it was practically unused and-”
“Sam!” Dean barked, advancing and Sam backed up until he felt wall behind his back and still Dean kept coming. He didn’t stop until he’d fisted hands into Sam’s shirt and lifted him clear off his feet. Sam winced as the chipped wall scraped the skin of his shoulders and lower back. “What did you do?”
“There was a guy, a Doctor Phillips Bobby knew. He had a couple of decommed C-series Imitants and he was able to fix you.” Sam’s feet drummed the wall as he scrabbled for purchase and for the first time in his life he was scared.
Of Dean.
“Something’s different. Something isn’t me. He replaced something and I can’t…” Dean suddenly seemed to realise what he was doing and his hands opened. Sam stumbled a little when he was freed so abruptly and he would’ve gone onto his ass if Dean hadn’t snapped a hand out and smacked him against the wall again, palm flat against Sam’s chest. “It’s not me anymore. I can feel…”
“I don’t get it Dean. He said you just needed a refit because some of your connections were fried and it was degrading your central system. He said you only had a few days before you’d shut down completely.”
“I can feel her inside. She was a C-5 and she had a little sister named Cathy and she doesn’t understand why Cathy went away and it’s dark, it’s so dark.”
“Dean, I don’t understand,” Sam said, trying to reach out but Dean stepped away, hand back on his chest.
“What if I can’t… what if you were in here,” Dean said, panic showing on his face. “You can’t just take something out.”
“Dean, look at me,” Sam said, moving back into Dean’s space and taking his wrist gently, prying his hand away and putting it over his own heart. “You’re in here,” he said and then he was smiling as he moved a hand to Dean. “And I’m in here,” he said, tapping Dean’s temple. “And here,” he said moving a hand to clap Dean’s bicep. “And maybe a little here,” he added, poking Dean in the belly and Dean seemed unable to help it.
He laughed.
The smile died on his face though as Sam watched. “She was alive Sam,” he said, putting hands up to his temples. “They killed her for me, to fix me.”
“Dean, it was just-” Sam started and then when Dean’s head flicked up and his eyes narrowed Sam realised what he’d nearly said. What it meant.
“A robot?”
“I’ve figured it out,” Sam said, nudging their bedroom door open with his foot, face buried in a book. When he looked up over the cover Dean raised an eyebrow at him, top half of him sprawled on the bed closest to the window and his feet kicked up on the other bed. Their Dad would give Dean hell for having shoes on the sheets but he was currently holed up in the kitchen, pouring over some of Bobby’s books and muttering to himself.
“The whole bra thing? Cause I gotta tell you Sam, most girls your age have already figured them out.”
“Har har,” Sam sighed, flopping down on his bed after pushing Dean’s feet off. “No I mean it. I know how to make you a person.”
Dean sat up, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his chin into one hand. “Sammy, we’ve been through this already.”
“Yeah, I know. But don’t you wanna have a heart and a brain-”
“If anyone around here doesn’t have a brain, it’s you.”
“I’m serious,” Sam said, scowling. “There’s heaps of things that are real from stories. Werewolves, ghosts, stuff like that? Why can’t good stuff be real too?”
“You lost me.”
“We just need to find, y’know, a blue fairy.”
“Ah,” Dean said, rolling his eyes and flopping back on his bed. “Now you’re making perfect sense.”
“No, listen,” Sam insisted, crossing the space between their beds and thumping the book he had onto Dean’s stomach. “There’s all kinds of things that might work. There’re these things called Dijins and they grant wishes, Dean.”
“Hey, that’s Dad’s journal.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you. We can find one of these guys and like, trap him and only let him go if he grants us a wish.”
“You gonna use a box, a stick and a piece of cheese?”
“Dad’s gotta have something else in here,” Sam said, flipping pages until Dean snatched the journal out of his hands. “Hey!”
“You shouldn’t be messing with this stuff. I’m real enough, I wish you would just drop it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because some day I’m gonna want to do normal stuff. Y’know, go to college and get a job and…”
“And?”
“Get married.”
“So?”
“So?” Sam asked, sounding impatient. “So you won’t be able to hang around me all the time and that’s… I mean, that’s all you do.”
“Oh.”
“But if we make you alive, then you can do that stuff too.”
Sam had been staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours.
“Dean?”
“Hmm?” Dean sounded muffled, half-asleep. He didn’t actually sleep, or so he claimed. He called it internalising but he did it on a bed flat on his stomach with his hands under the pillow and Sam could’ve sworn he’d heard a snore a time or two.
“How’d… how’d it feel for you when I left?”
Sam sensed Dean hesitate. He knew it was pretty unfair to question Dean, that when he asked something straight out Dean had to fight every fibre of his being not to answer, even if it was something Sam was better off not knowing. He abused their relationship and what Dean was more often than he was strictly comfortable with but sometimes he couldn’t help it. Dean, for all that he was, still managed to be a closed book some of the time.
“You mean when you went to Stanford?”
“Yeah. I know you were helping Dad and you were doing hunts solo but… I mean, how did that feel for you?”
“Are you trying to check in some half-assed, roundabout way if I’ll be okay on my own again?” Dean asked. In the half-light Sam saw Dean’s head come off his pillow and there was the faint glitter of Dean’s eyes, reflective in the dark like a cat’s.
Sam knew that Dean could see him perfectly, that shadow didn’t benefit him the way it benefited Dean in being able to hide expressions. He supposed it was only fair considering Dean couldn’t actively lie to Sam. They both had their own ways of hiding the truth if they needed to.
“No, I just… well, sort of.”
“Christ, Sammy,” Dean sighed, sitting up and scrubbing a hand over his face. His feet hit the floor with two gentle thumps and his hair was sticking up at the back like a kid’s. Not for the first time Sam wondered just exactly how Dean wasn’t…
“You planning on taking off, because I would really like a head’s up if you are. And not this walking-on-eggshells tap-dance you have going.”
“What? No, not right now. Jesus, I’m just… when I’m gone. I was just wondering if you would be okay.”
“When you’re gone?” Dean asked, and now he sounded puzzled. Dean got metaphor, he got innuendo and almost all other subtle form of communication but he could still be thrown by conflicting ideas. Sam was saying he wasn’t leaving but that he’d be gone at some point and Sam realised that he would’ve simply stumped Dean with that.
“You’re going to… endure I guess for a long time. You won’t get old like me. I think according to a couple of things Dad said you’re pretty much at the age you’ll be from now on. At some point I’ll… I’m going to, if my luck holds out, get old and… you know. I just think about it sometimes is all. What you’ll do. If you’ll be fine.”
Dean finally seemed to get what Sam was hinting at and he stilled. Sam didn’t need to see his face to understand that he’d hit on something without really meaning to, that maybe Dean had been avoiding. When Dean said, “You don’t have to worry about that,” in a dismissive tone and went to lie down again, Sam sat up quickly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Can we just drop it? It’s late and don’t think I haven’t noticed the total lack of sleep you’ve been working on lately.”
“Dean!”
“Sam, honestly. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“I swear, if you don’t tell me what you mean…” Sam didn’t really know how to finish the threat as he watched Dean flump onto his back and put his hands behind his head.
“I’m a Big Brother, Sam,” Dean said, tone quiet. Despite this, Sam heard the capitol letters as clear as day. Still, it was sometimes easier to play ignorant with Dean because he would end up explaining himself and revealing more than he meant to in the process.
“I know you’re my big brother but that still doesn’t-”
“No, Sam. I’m a Big Brother. I’m not meant to… you know, last.”
Sam felt everything in him grow cold. When he’d been old enough to start asking the hard questions, like why the sky was blue, why birds could fly and he couldn’t and more specifically about Dean, his father had gotten cagey about certain aspects. The D-19 manuals had survived the fire in their little metal case but his dad, after reading and committing the most important aspects to memory, had destroyed them. Sam, had in some small way always suspected there would’ve been something in those manuals that he wouldn’t like.
“Dean… you’ve gotta… you gotta tell me what that means.”
Sam heard Dean sigh, low and long. “I’m a Big Brother. A Protection Unit and Companion. You know when you asked me about going to college, how you couldn’t take me along like Linus with his blanket?” When Sam nodded slowly, Dean continued. “The… makers thought of that. Big Brothers have a shelf life.”
“How long?” Sam asked, surprised himself by how hollow and shocky his voice sounded.
“Sam-”
“How long, Dean?” Sam repeated, swallowing hard and gripping his hands so tight into fists he could feel the nails cut into the flesh of his palms.
“About twelve more months,” Dean said and Sam felt his jaw unhinge, the tiny gasp that escaped. “Actually, eleven months, three weeks, seventeen days and forty three minutes, give or take,” Dean added, letting a small snort escape, trying for brevity that fell flat between them.
Sam smacked hands to his face for a moment, then rubbed his head over vigorously. Sam had spent most of his life wondering what Dean would do without him, always in the back of his mind the fact that Dean was this practically indestructible machine that would just keep on truckin’ long after most people kicked off. In some abstract way it registered that Dean as far as he knew was one of the last Big Brothers and that Sam just hadn’t seen any others. He never really thought too hard about where they were because he just assumed they would be like Dean, functioning like a member of society, non-descript enough to be passed in the street without any evidence of the fact that they were other than an average Joe.
“Well, I guess we know what we have to do then,” Sam said finally and Dean blinked at him. He supposed he didn’t know what Dean had been expecting from his little revelation but it wasn’t this determined brusqueness. But, from what Dean had told him, they didn’t have much time.
“I just want you to have a purpose-”
“You’re my purpose!” Dean snapped and usually when he said something as bald as that, he would duck his head, stare at his shoes but this time he just crossed his arms over his chest and glared, defiant.
“Just… stay with Dad. He needs you more than me,” Sam said, wringing the straps of his backpack in his hands, feeling the fabric twist in his fists.
“You know I’ll do anything you ask me to,” Dean said and Sam understood it for what it was, an offer rather than acceptance.
Sam could see it too. Dean would get a job at a local garage and they’d get an apartment together and Sam would be what he always was while at college.
Cared for.
Safe.
He needed to get out into the world and he wasn’t quite sure how to communicate that to Dean.
He didn’t need his Big Brother around, holding his hand.
Eleven months, three weeks, seventeen days and thirty-eight minutes of not much time.
“Let’s go find ourselves a blue fairy.”
----
Now Wait For Last Year