A/N: Another not-exactly-AU story, written for a prompt by jennytork.

And Master of One

It takes a lot of phone calls and arguments and assertions that he really does want to do this. It takes a lot of pleas of extenuating circumstances. It takes a lot of testing and emailing and scanning and drawing and photography. It takes a lot of late nights and early mornings and frequent backups on the external hard drive Sammy doesn't know he has so that he can pick just the right porn sites to freeze the laptop and cover his tracks.

And the second year, it takes a lot of hushed conversations with Ash that Sam assumes have more to do with girls and booze and maybe pot than with the subject they're really discussing. Ash is one of the few people in the world who tells Dean that no, he's not stupid, just undereducated, and he's one of the rare few—apart from the prof who's working with Dean, Bobby when it's a topic he knows, and occasionally Sam when it occurs to him—to actually want to help remedy that.

After the deal, Dean thinks very seriously about giving up on it—not like it'll be much use to him downstairs, and he's just lost his dearest friend and tutor. But that lasts all of a day before he decides he's going to finish what he's started, let it be part of the legacy he leaves behind for Sam. After all, it was Sam's constant needling about his lack of education that started all of this. And when his dream-demon-self taunts him that he's never had anything that was all his own, he can honestly retort that he will have in just a few months' time—something not even Bela can steal from him.

Henricksen, by some minor miracle, never figures out it's really him. He'd probably have found them a lot faster otherwise.

There's a lot of stress and anxiety and depression and a lot of desperately wishing Ash were still around to help him through this, and not a little despair of making it to the finish line. But Dean manages to get all the ducks in a row a week before his deal is due and alerts both Sam and Bobby that a package will be coming to Bobby's house that summer. He insists that they open it when it arrives.

And when, against all odds, he finds himself back on Bobby's doorstep in September, the one thing that convinces Bobby it's really Dean is that he knows what was in that package.

Unfortunately, it arrived while Sam was off doing who-knows-what, and Bobby was the only one to have seen its contents. Fortunately, Bobby had managed to get them framed, and they're hanging in the study. "Damn proud of you, son," Bobby tells him with a squeeze to the back of the neck, and Dean very nearly cries for joy.

Sam finally thinks to ask about the package after they get the Witnesses dispatched. And Dean leads him into the study and says, "Read 'em and weep, little brother."

Two diplomas. Both from a good, though not Ivy League, university. Both bearing the name Dean Michael Winchester. One for a Bachelor of Science—summa cum laude. One for a Master of Science. Both in Electrical Engineering.

Sam huffs, nodding. "Good forgeries, dude."

Dean decks him on principle. "Just because you went to Stanford doesn't mean you're smarter than me," he growls.

And he vows to himself that as soon as they take care of this Apocalypse business, he's getting his PhD.

But he doesn't have many days of feeling like he still has to prove himself to Sam. Before they leave Bobby's again, another package comes, and Sam signs for it before bringing it in. "Dean? Did you order something from University Microfilms?"

"Few months ago, yeah." Dean smirks suddenly. "You open it."

Sam does—and freezes. It's a bound copy of Dean's thesis.

"Look it up online if you need to," Dean says. "But yeah. It's real."

Sam looks up at him. "You... seriously?!"

"Ash helped, but yeah. Think I might go for my PhD, too," he adds casually. "If we can keep Lilith from blowin' up the planet."

Sam's eyes look suspiciously bright. "And you never told me?"

"Didn't need your help. Didn't want you makin' fun of me. Hell, you just accused me of forging those diplomas a few days ago. You think I needed to hear that kind of thing when I was tryin' to get through a six-year program in three years—especially these three years?"

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers, a tear starting to trail down his cheek. "Dean, I am so sorry. I never should have doubted you. I never should have made you feel like you had to prove that you were smart." He swallows convulsively before adding, "You were probably the best teacher I ever had."

Dean looks at him a moment before sighing. "It wasn't just you, Sammy. It was Dad and Missouri and every teacher I ever had. I just... I had to prove it to them, too. And to myself," he finishes quietly.

Sam looks back down at the thesis and runs a hand over the cover before sniffling and chuckling. "Well, then. Guess we'd better stop Lilith so I can start calling you Doctor."

A beat passes before Dean laughs, and Sam stomps across the room to pull him into a hug.