Title: Family Portrait

Author: BlazeorFade

Rating: T

Summary: Dean, Sam and Jack ruminate on each other. Told in the first person.

Disclaimer: I own Jack, but not the boys but y'all knew that already.

Sam Winchester

Dean is a lot smarter than he acts. He built a freakin EMF from an old walkman, for fuck's sake. That's why I get frustrated when he just doesn't get it. Then he'll do something like, oh I don't know, save my life and I just can't stay mad at the bastard anymore. Then a few hours will pass and he'll say something and then it'll be back to me wanting to thrash him. Not that I'd get the chance Dean would see me coming from a mile away. Dean is smart with his hands, he knows how things work and how to make them work.

He was always the better hunter and maybe I was jealous of that as a kid. But I was also proud. My brother saved lives, my brother killed the monster in the closet and laughed about it later. This job always seemed to come natural for him and he made it seem easy, I knew better but still. Up till I was about sixteen Dean was my hero. That is so embarrassing. I'll deny it if you tell him I said that, he'd never let me live it down..

I think I was jolted out the hero worship faze when I started questioning my dad, when I started wanting to know why instead of just following orders and Dean didn't. I wanted him to be on my side like he was on my side in every other fight all our lives. But Dean wouldn't take sides and I hated that.

He took my side when Dad came back into our lives. Not once but twice, some part of me that was still sixteen felt like it was Christmas morning. I think I was even more shocked than Dad.

Dean is more complex than he lets on. I know because I still have to work to figure out what is going on behind those careful eyes. He's twice as guarded as he was before I left. I'm to blame for that. Dean still expects to be left. I didn't believe it when the shape shifter told me that but I put the pieces together from his half started statements and actions. He says I don't want to know what happens in his head. But it would've helped if at least I got a decoder ring or a manual or something when I first came back. I'm almost fluent in Dean now though. Its part listening hard to what tape he shoves into the cassette player and what song he fast forwards to.

'Back in Black' blared the night he got me at Stanford. It took me a bit to get that. I don't think he even does it intentionally. The music just reflects who he is. I think I'm starting to like the music, I'll never him that though. Jack's right, the man's a music Nazi.

Sometimes I envy how easy things just roll off Dean's back. Like he always just knows its going to be fine. That he's going to make it be fine. And the funny thing is, a lot of the time it is fine. Not great, not fixed, but we'll survive, the three of us, because that's what we do.

To my brother family is everything, the end all be all. Above the hunt, above everything else. Dean will kill for us. Dean will die for us too. Ready and willing, though that's never plan A. That scares the hell out of me. I don't want Dean to die for me. Please……I can't lose anymore people.

Last night I couldn't sleep, terrified by a nightmare(not the premonition type, I can differentiate them now) that one day I'll wake up to my father or my brother pinned to ceiling because of me. When that happened I told myself that Dad's far away and I know he's safe 'cause he just called to leave coordinates before we turned in for the night. Then I looked across the room and saw Dean looking at me sleepily.

"Nightmares?" He asked me and I can see his hand ease up from the knife under his pillow.

"I'm fine." I said and we both know it means that I'm not.

Then this morning he asks if I slept okay. And I say yes and within ten minutes of being stretched out in the backseat I'm down for the count. The last sounds I hear before falling asleep are Jack playing keep away with Dean's Metallica tape and him threatening bodily harm if she doesn't give it back. I'm trying not to laugh, don't poke the bear folks, it never ends well for the poker. It feels safe to fall asleep with them sitting not a foot from me. I feel almost like it'll be okay.

-fin

AN: This concept just sort of popped into my head while I was writing ch.12 of Possession (don't worry it'll be up soon). And I just decided to run with it and see where it took me. Reviews please. Thank You.