A/N: This one is a fill in for the episode "Phantom Traveler".
Jealousy wasn't exactly an emotion Dean Winchester was used to. He was used to being angry, or scared, or disappointed or even happy but jealous…that just something he didn't feel very often and when he did it was fleeting. Growing up he had watched other kids get picked up by their moms and dads and grandparents too, he had watched and wished that he could be one of those kids with a family to go home to, to be loved by, to be cared for by…but he hadn't wished for that for long. Because inside all of these seemingly perfect families there were siblings that disliked one another, hated each other, wished the other didn't exist. Siblings that backstabbed, purposefully angered the other or were simply ignored by the other one. For those reasons he had counted himself lucky and definitely not jealous.
Even Sam's intelligence had been a source of pride for Dean. Sam was just the book smart one of the team. Sam doing the research end of their job was always a blessing in Dean's book. It allowed him to go in smart when he had to defend his family against one of the nasties of the world. While Sam could hold his own with a gun or a machete in his hand, he preferred to use his intelligence, he left the blood and guts to Dean. Never once had Dean been jealous that his brother was intelligent until today.
Dean, his father, and the guy they were helping, Jerry Pinowski, were sitting in Jerry's living room waiting for this nasty as all hell poltergeists to rear its ugly head so they could figure out what to do and destroy the fugly bastard.
"We just moved here a couple of months ago. Our oldest boy went off to college, and we needed a change of pace." Jerry said as he eyed the room obviously worried the poltergeist would come out of the wood work and attack him specifically.
"My youngest is in college." Dean turned abruptly to his father. There was a strict "No talking about Sammy" rule firmly in place in their family. What confused Dean more than his father actually mentioning Sam was the fact that Dean detected a note of pride in his father's voice.
"What college?"
"Stanford. Full ride." John Winchester said with a prideful smile. Dean looked down at the salt gun, the thing he had come up with in order to dispel ghosts—it was infinitely more effective than throwing it at ghosts, he wanted to push the gun at this Jerry guy and go "I made this. I did it. See. I'm smart too!" But just like everything else since Sammy left, he pushed it down deep. Pushed it into the box marked "feelings I don't want to deal with" and shut the lid, granted he had to sit on it to make it stay shut, but he got that sucker closed.
"Wow! My kid didn't get a full ride. He tried but he didn't play any sports."
"Neither did Sammy. He got the full ride based on his academic record."
"My youngest, well he's not the brightest. We can only hope that he can get a football scholarship."
"Don't have to worry about that with Dean here." John clapped Dean on the shoulder. He gave Jerry a smile, definitely one that didn't move any part of him except his lips. "He doesn't have any desire to go to school." Dean wanted to scream. He had wanted to go to school. He had gotten in. His father had found the letter and yelled at him for wanting to abandon his family as well. Why wasn't that mentioned? Why was it okay to make him look like a moron?
"Like the family business son?" Jerry asked. Dean nodded and tried to smile
"Yes sir."
"Well, that's a good thing then." Dean heard the implication that since he must be a dumb ass it is a good thing that he could be taught the basics of the family business. He looked down at his homemade EMF reader, the one he had made out of the walkman his father had thrown against the wall when he had been angry at Dean for listening to music while he researched. He claimed it slowed him down, and again wanted to show this guy that he was capable of something important and not just a drag on his father.
Dean wondered if any of it mattered to his father. He wondered why all of the sudden it was okay to be proud of Sam. Every time he mentioned Sam his father pitched a fit and reminded him that he was no longer a member of the family. But here he was talking to this Jerry guy as if Sam was the best thing that ever hit the face of the planet.
The jealousy burned so deep and so bright in that instant that Dean almost missed the fact that the EMF reader in his hand was going off like a police siren. That night Dean was knocked around, scraped and bruised and his ego was so deflated that he was fairly certain that he didn't have one any more. But the poltergeist had been take care of and as his father was saying his good byes to Jerry, Dean got into the Impala drove to the motel room, found it empty just as it had when he left it, Dad came and went so often anymore that they didn't even share a room, and Dean realized where the jealousy came from. Dean wasn't jealous of Sam, he was jealous that he wasn't the one to brag about Sam. John Winchester wasn't the one who sat up with Sam and helped him with papers, he wasn't the one to walk Sam to the nearest library and wait for him to do research, usually on a Saturday afternoon, he wasn't the one who helped Sam get ready for that soccer game he had been so hell bent in participating in, he hadn't been the one to teach Sam about girls, he hadn't done any of that. Dean had raised Sam. He had been the one to nurture him and love him and here his father was acting like Sam was his son. Sure, it may have been John Winchester who fathered, Sam but it was Dean who had raised him and he was the one who deserved bragging rights.
That was the argument he provided for himself while he was getting ready for bed, but the real reason was that Dean was in another dingy motel room, as dumb as the day before, learning nothing other than the best type of rock salt and which blade was the best to use on a pagan god, and Sam was out there in California learning about real things, things that most people learned about, things that had nothing to do with the life. Sam was out t here making friends and had a girlfriend, and here was, alone, again, in a motel room where people didn't even know his real name and would forget about him as soon as he pulled out of town. And his one consolation had always been that his father was proud of him, happy with him that he had stayed and done what was expected of him, and today he found out that his father was more proud of Sam who had rebelled and left the family business. That was what soured in his stomach and left him feeling like he wanted to retch.
Tomorrow, he would become a better soldier. He would be better, he would research faster, would be stronger and tougher. He would do anything he could to hear that same pride in his father's voice when talking about him as he heard today when his father spoke about Sam. He would make John Winchester proud if it was the last thing he did.
