Title: Sleeping Satellite
Genre: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Words: 600
Spoilers: Up to 6.11.
Summary: Sam watches Dean sleep.
Disclaimer: Not mine. All Kripke's, Gamble's, Warner's, the CW's. *sniffle*
A/N: Not entirely sure what this is except...short. Thanks to bjxmas for the inspiration! Title from the song by Tasmin Archer. (Yes I know I'm showing my age!)

Sleeping Satellite

Dean had called it "rapey."

Sam didn't see it that way.

Of course, he hadn't said anything when Dean had picked up the teen vamp novel, taken one look at the cover and tossed it aside with a shudder.

Some things Dean didn't need to know.

That his little brother sat watching him sleep most nights?

That was one of those things Dean really didn't need to know.

Of course, Sam didn't sleep; and there was only so much researching, iron pumping and prowling for women with loose morals a guy without a soul could do every night for a year.

So watching Dean sleep had become as natural as watching the TV. Or girls. Or porn.

Not that Sam thought about Dean that way.

He had all of Sam's memories, after all. He remembered, even if he didn't feel.

Even if he didn't know right from wrong.

And he remembered he'd loved Dean once.

Not like he loved researching. Or pumping iron. Or women with loose morals.

And not in the way those girls on the internet seemed to think, either.

The ones who wrote their bedtime stories about that other Sam and Dean.

The ones in those books.

Sam had read every one of Carver Edlund's novels in the year between then and now.

He wasn't entirely sure why.

He remembered he had known the author, the prophet Chuck Shurley, called him a friend.

But that hadn't been the reason.

And it wasn't as if he was trying to remind himself of everything that had happened to Sam and Dean Winchester since, "Dad's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Because he already remembered it. All of it.

He supposed, when it came down to it, he'd read every one of Carver Edlund's books in the hope that somehow they'd remind him how to be.

How to be Sam Winchester.

Being Sam Winchester was hard work, and Sam had always known he'd hook up with Dean again someday.

It was inevitable.

Like breathing.

And killing.

And researching.

And pumping iron.

And chasing women with loose morals.

So maybe it was homework.

Maybe he'd read the novels—reread the novels—so that when the inevitable happened, when he couldn't stay away from Dean any longer, he'd maybe be able to fool him, just for a little while.

Fool him into believing he had his baby brother back, whole and intact.

Not empty and broken.

Sam didn't think of himself as either, particularly.

But he knew Dean would.

Dean with his judgey morals and his distaste for "rapey" guys who watched chicks sleep.

Or big brothers.

Guys who watched big brothers sleep.

It wasn't "rapey" if you loved the person you were watching, right?

And he'd loved Dean once.

Sam remembered that, if nothing else.

Maybe he'd feel that way again someday.

When he wasn't empty or broken or soulless or incapable of telling right from wrong, Sammy!

So he'd carry on saving people, hunting things, even if the one was merely an accidental byproduct of the other and saving people meant nothing more to him than Dean did.

But he'd carry on because that was what Sam Winchester would do. It was what Dean wanted him to do.

It was what Dean wanted him to be.

His little brother.

The kid he pulled from a fire.

The little brother he loved.

And Sam had loved Dean once.

So carry on he would.

He was still Dean's little brother, after all.

The End

Thanks for reading!