AN (new): I'm moving all of the Heritage series to one story. This may be a repeat for many of you.
AN (original): A snippet from sometime in "Heritage" when Alec (who-is-Dean) was staying in Lawrence with the Winchesters. It probably helps quite a bit to have read that first. Also, the timeline has gone completely to crap, and I make no apologies for that. Essentially, I'm considering everything fair game. References to "Dead in the Water."
Disclaimer: None of it is mine. As always, unbetaed. Apologies for any and all mistakes.
In Sam's room there were pictures on the walls, and a shiny new diploma. There were shelves lined with trophies and trinkets and books. A lot of books.
Alec stood at the shelves and read the spines. He ran his finger down the bindings of a few stacked one on the other and tried to picture Sam reading Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. He tried to imagine himself reading them.
It suited Sam better.
Sam's room was a strange place for him. In there, it was like there was no Pulse, no Manticore or Terminal City, and never had been. In Sam's room, there were all the signs of a little boy growing up well loved and taken care of, and the salt on the window was just another indication of that.
Alec ran his finger along the window sill and caught a few granules on his finger tips.
He tried to picture his life as Dean. He tried to imagine sleeping in a room like this, with his own books and trinkets. He couldn't imagine books like Sam's, but maybe comic books, and magazines.
He looked at the pictures on the walls, and tried to design his own. Would he have had posters of hot women, or of cars and motorcycles? He kind of liked the picture of Sam, standing with John and Mary at a lake somewhere. He mentally inserted himself into that frame, then pulled it off the wall and turned it over, hand poised and ready to steal the picture and shove it into his jacket.
"Sam?" It was Mary, calling from downstairs. "Sam, are you going out with your friends tonight? Or will you be home for dinner?"
Sam was in the shower. Alec went to the top of the stairs and looked down at her. She smiled when she saw him.
"Are you guys going out?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "I think so."
"Okay, well, should I plan on you for dinner?"
Alec shrugged. "I'll ask Sam when he gets out."
"Sure," she was still smiling, but it was a sad smile. He didn't understand it. Eventually, she patted the railing a little and wandered off. He thought maybe she had wanted to say something else.
He took the frame, still with its picture inside, back to Sam's room and sat on the bed.
He ran his fingers lightly over Mary's face and imagined calling her "mom". He imagined her calling for him, but in his head it always came out Dean.
Sam came in a few minutes later, dressed in clean jeans and a t-shirt and still dripping water from his hair.
"Hey man," he said, "what'd my mom want?"
Alec threw the frame behind him on the bed. "Just to know if we were eating dinner here," he said.
"Well, yeah," Sam said. "Unless you don't want to?"
"It's fine with me," he said, and stood up to leave the room.
He was in the doorway, when Sam said, "Hey," and he turned around to find the frame in Sam's hands now.
"Yeah?"
"This was a great trip, up to Lake Manitoc. Dad had business there so we made a vacation out of it. I remember that he didn't want to go in the lake and mom teased him about it mercilessly. My sides hurt so bad from laughing at them."
Alec nodded, not really sure what to say to a story he hadn't asked for.
Sam opened the back of the frame and pulled out the photograph. He held it out to Alec, who suddenly thought of Max, trying to do something for him that he still wasn't sure he wanted, but Sam didn't even know what he was offering, besides a picture that had caught Alec's attention.
"Hey man," he said, "it's your family," and held his hands up, palms out, deflecting.
"Yeah," Sam said, "I know," and grabbed Alec's hand and put the picture in it. "Let's go eat."
Alec stood there dumbfounded for a minute before he tucked it carefully inside his jacket without looking at it. There'd be plenty of time for that later. He followed Sam downstairs.