Title: Knowledge
Author: fairytalemanipulator
Summary: Oneshot. Dean knows some things. But then he compares those things to what his brother knows, and he is once again sorely disappointed. Dean centric, ANGSTY reflections.
Disclaimer: Supernatural ain't mine.
Warnings: None. At the end, I mention John Winchester dying, but that was expected to happen some time anyway, right?
Spoilers: None.
A/N: This is sort of weird. I wrote this in a fit of depression slash anger, so it kind of comes out like that. I might write another story to continue on with the end setting of this one…I actually like this. I don't know, maybe it's the angst.
Review please, tell me what you think!
Late at night, Dean lies awake and stares at another dirty motel room ceiling.
He listens, once again, to his brother's rhythmic breathing, but once again, Dean doesn't shut his eyes.
Sam doesn't believe Dean when he says that he harbors no resentment towards his younger brother. It's not all true, but it's not a lie, either.
The only thing Dean holds against his brother (which, technically, he doesn't hold against his brother) is the same thing he holds against his father (which, technically, he doesn't hold against his father).
Dean was never expected to do anything with his life but hunt. Dean was the firstborn, he was the protector, he was the brawn to Sammy's brains, as their father had once jokingly said.
However unspoken it was, it was an assumption that Sam would make it big.
Even when he was young, he had dreams of making it big in the corporate world, or being a high-paid, sought-after criminal defense lawyer.
The words used for Sam were motivated, smart, bound to be successful, sharp, and witty.
The words for Dean were trouble, get-out-of-town, and womanizer.
The thing is, Dean dreamed too. Once upon a time, he dreamed of a better life. For himself, and for his family.
Dean had always wondered what it would be like to be praised for his knowledge in things other than the supernatural.
He wondered how it felt when a teacher put his name up on the board for something other than detention.
Dean never got enough courage to ask his brother how it felt to receive an acceptance letter to an Ivy League university, and after time passed, he forgot to care.
But that didn't stop him from wondering, in his spare time, in the wee hours of the night, when the rest of the world was sleeping and Dean was thinking.
Dean wondered what it was like at college.
He wondered about the academics, the socials, the teachers…the chicks.
He wondered about the future, about how his future would be different if his mother were still alive, if he never learned about the existence of the supernatural, or if he had gotten a better semester grade in his English class, or if he had skipped that shot of tequila last night.
Dean never showed his resentment, just like he never intentionally showed his aptitude at anything besides shooting a gun and exorcising a spirit.
He never let it be known to his family that he, too, would have one day liked to attend a university, maybe make something of his life.
Maybe be expected to make something of his life.
But no one expected that from him. Dean hardly expected it of himself. It was yet another unfulfilled dream, another soft-spoken wish that would never be granted.
Dean was used to disappointment. But nothing prepared him for the day that his brother left him. And once again, he was expected to pick up the extra slack when his father, too, disappeared.
He was expected to carry on, to search and destroy, to function as the brawn to Sammy's brains.
And so he did.
He gave his brother the glory of the academics, and in the shadow of his father, he took for himself the glory of the hunt.
He let it consume him, let it define him, and soon enough all those hollow, hopeful dreams of his had washed away.
Dean let it be known that he didn't care for school.
He didn't like teachers, didn't like essays, didn't like pop quizzes and didn't like homework.
He never said anything, though, about the knowledge aspect. Dean held in a high regard those who were more educated than he was, because for him, they represented the person he could have been.
Dean didn't resent his family for thinking him incapable of succeeding at anything besides the hunt.
On the contrary, he knew he was needed to be the constant in the family, the one that his father could count on to lead the search for the poltergeist, or determine the whereabouts of a vampire.
Sam needed him to provide what any big brother is capable of—comfort, support, and the occasional punch in the arm.
Dean takes comfort in the fact that he knows some things.
But then he compares what he knows to what his brother knows. Hell, even to what the cashier at the mini-mart knows; and he is once again sorely disappointed with himself.
Dean knows how to save a life.
He knows how to survive a three-story fall.
He knows how to ward off anything supernatural.
He can shoot any kind of gun from Texas to Singapore, and then some.
He can defend himself using karate or tai-kwon-do.
He knows how to be a big brother.
Sam, on the other hand, knows this and everything else.
…………..
Five years from now, when the demon that killed Mary Winchester and Jessica is gone, so is John Winchester.
He sacrifices himself for the greater good; to save his sons, to save his world. His last words to Dean are look out for Sammy, be careful with the hunt, I love you son.
At the funeral, Dean sheds one tear and only one tear before he walks away with his brother, away from the blisteringly cold wasteland that is the cemetery.
He never goes back. The flowers wilt, the stone erodes, and still, Dean never goes back.
He also never moves on.
Sam goes back to school, just like he said he would.
Because Sam's motivated. He's smart. He's bound to be successful.
He becomes an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, and marries a girl he met at law school. They have two children, two girls, and a dog and a white picket fence.
Sam's wife makes him apple pie when he goes to see his nieces.
Dean visits them whenever he's in town. Which isn't very often.
Because Dean is a hunter. And Dean is proud of his brother. Yet, Dean is also desperately jealous of his brother.
Dean wonders, years later late at night, all alone in another motel room, what Sam's life would be like.
A life of expectations and knowledge, of loving and being loved, of happiness and desire, of innocence and bliss.
No, Dean will never know what it's like. He has seen too much in his decades of hunting to ever be able to trust, to settle down…to love.
He has seen the cruelties of the world from an insider's vantage point.
While Dean saw the evil, Sam saw the good.
That is why Sam can move onwards, while Dean is stuck in place. Sam received closure with the demon's demise.
Sam knows what it's like to be human firsthand, while Dean knows nothing of it and wishes for enlightenment each and every day he picks up his gun and his father's journal.
When he hides the knife under his pillow at night, he wonders what it would be like to never worry about that again.
When rids the world of another banshee, he wonders why he saves these people again and again.
When he kills the demon that is responsible for the mass murders of college co-eds, he wonders why he cares so much and when this became his life.
He wonders, above all, what it would be like to not be ignorant.
No, Dean didn't resent anyone for his lack of knowledge.
He just resented himself.
Reviews greatly appreciated and (hopefully) all responded to! Just to clarify...yes, this WAS meant to be a little rambling and all over the place. This is probably one of the more angsty things I have written recently, so please tell me how I'm doing!