Work Text:
“Dean?” Jack sounds tired.
Dean blinks, looking at him. He hadn’t realized that Jack’s awake. “Yeah, kid?”
“Do you think Sam’s afraid of me?”
Dean takes in a deep breath. “No,” he says in the end.
“But you think he should be,” Jack finishes.
Intuitive for a three-year-old, thinks Dean mirthlessly. “Yeah, Jack,” he says out loud. “I think he should be.”
“Because I’m a monster?” asks Jack. He doesn’t look sad, or anything like that - there’s nothing in his expression except a strange sort of resignation that looks out of place on his normally innocent features.
“No,” says Dean again. “But because you could easily be one.”
Jack looks thoughtful at that, turning away from Dean so he can pick at the edge of his blanket. Dean looks away too. He’d hoped, when it was his turn to watch Jack, that the kid would be asleep. Hell, it was part of the reason he’d agreed to watch him in the first place - Sam needed to rest, and Cas was buried deep in the library, going through book after book in some vain effort to figure out a way to save Jack.
Dean ignores the deja-vu prickling at the back of his skull. He makes a conscious effort not to remember how devastated Sam had been last time they’d been in this situation. All it really does, however, is conjure up the mental image of Sam sitting on the cold, wet ground by the Impala’s front tire, defeated.
Dean thinks of Sam on the cold, wet ground again, but this time at Cold Oak. He thinks of the deal he’d made, and his fear that Sam was going to make a similar deal for Jack. He thinks of John’s deal for him.
The dead make the best secret-keepers.
“Sam ever tell you about our dad?” Dean asks in the end.
Jack blinks. “No,” he says. He sounds tired. “He didn’t mention him much.”
“And you never read his journal?”
“No,” Jack says again.
“Okay, well, Dad was convinced Sam was going to become a monster, too,” Dean tells Jack, turning in his chair so he can face the kid. “He’d done his research, figured out the truth about what was in Sam’s blood, and what Azazel wanted from him. And he thought - he thought the only thing we could do to save Sam was to kill him.”
“Kill him?” Jack repeats, brow furrowing. “But it’s Sam!” He looks like he’s struggling with the concept. “He’s - he’s good!”
Dean lets out a hollow laugh. “Believe me, kid, I know. He’s too damn good for - well, his own good. Dad didn’t think so, though. Or maybe he didn’t care, I don’t know. He was convinced Sam was gonna go darkside, and I’d have to either save him or kill him.”
“Why you?” Jack asks.
“‘Cause he sold his soul for me,” Dean replies with a heavy sigh. “I got no doubt if Dad had lived, he might’ve tried to do something about Sam.” He exhales slowly. “And sometimes I ask myself what I woulda done, if it had come down to choosing between Dad and Sam.”
“You’d have chosen Sam,” Jack says, and his voice is stronger now, more confident. “I know you would have.”
“No offense, kid, but you’re like, three,” Dean points out with a snort. “How could you possibly know?”
Jack gives him a knowing look. It’s weird to see. “You’re ready to let me die for Sam,” he reminds Dean, not looking at all bothered by this. Even though honestly, he should be. “You’d do anything for Sam. Of course you would have chosen him over your dad.”
Dean looks at Jack. “Yeah,” he says in the end. “Yeah.” It is true, after all. “Funny thing is, that’s what finally made me realize that my dad wasn’t the hero I’d always thought he was. What kinda hero asks his kid to kill his other kid, man? I couldn’t do it. Not even when Sam begged me to.”
“Why would he do that?” asks Jack. It’s the first time all night he’s shown some expression beyond contented resignation - now he looks distressed, like the thought of Sam feeling that way is physically hurting him.
Dean can relate.
“Why do you think?” he asks Jack with another hollow laugh. “‘Cause he thought he was a monster. And here’s the thing - I swore to myself I was never, ever gonna be like my dad. After Sam jumped in the cage to stop the apocalypse, I had a shot at having a family. Had a kid, even. And I swore I was gonna be better with him than my dad was with me’n Sam.”
“What happened to him?” Jack wants to know.
“I shoved him,” Dean answers dully. “I lied my ass off to him, I kept things from his mom, and I shoved him when I got mad. I did all the things I hated my dad for doing to us. And here’s the kicker, kid - I’m doin’ ‘em again.”
“With me?”
Dean nods. “Yeah.”
“Cause you think I could easily be a monster,” Jack says slowly. “Just like how your dad thought Sam could be one, too.”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t kill Sam,” Jack says.
“Didn’t really save him, either,” Dean points out. “Centuries of torture in Hell at Lucifer’s hands. I wouldn’t call that a victory.”
“You didn’t kill me either,” says Jack after a moment.
“Didn’t I?” Dean asks. “I remember when you tried to stab yourself and nothing happened. You used to be scared of me, Jack.”
“I’m not anymore,” Jack says. It sounds oddly like he’s trying to reassure Dean, which does nothing for the guilt pooling heavy in his stomach.
“I know,” he answers. “But that‘s not all I did, is it? I practically told you to die just so Sammy and I could live. You don’t think that’s as good as me bein’ the one to pull the trigger?”
“No, because I knew I was going to die before you did,” Jack reminds Dean. “And I didn’t want Cas to tell you or Sam. I lied to you both, and I hid things from you.”
“You’re a kid!” Dean bursts out, heart aching sharp in his chest suddenly, and Jack jumps a little. “You’re a kid, Jack, and that’s what kids friggin’ do! They lie and they keep things, ‘cause they don’t know any better, but the answer ain’t for me to tell you to go on your merry way and explode yourself!”
“There was no other way at the time,” Jack says, and it infuriates Dean how calm he sounds. None of this is fair, and the kid should be mad about it, dammit. He should at least be upset, yelling, anything other than this stupid, unbreakable calmness.
“Yeah, see, that’s a load of bull,” Dean says. “We could have just… not. But no one ever friggin’ listens to Sam until it’s too damn late, and that’s exactly what’s happened here, and now you’re gonna die. Why the hell doesn’t that bother you?”
“Because,” Jack says, and now he looks earnest. “Because it’s for Sam. I want Sam to be happy and safe just as much as you do, Dean. I love him.”
All the fight goes out of Dean at that, and he sags into the chair. “You know he won’t be happy that you’re dead,” he points out.
“But he’ll be safe, and he’ll have you,” Jack counters.
“He loves you,” Dean says.
“He loves you more,” Jack replies. He says it simply, like it’s an indisputable fact, as commonly known as the color of the sky.
Dean opens his mouth, tries to come up with an argument for that, and fails.
“He won’t say it, not to my face, but it’s true,” Jack continues. “He loves you more than he loves anything or anyone else.”
“I love him too,” Dean whispers, defeated, as if it’s a secret instead of an unshakeable, constant truth.
Jack nods. “Yes, I know. And - and that makes everything worth it, doesn’t it?”
It does.
Dean doesn’t say it out loud, but then he doesn’t need to. It’s clear from the smile on Jack’s face that he knows what Dean is thinking.
“I don’t blame you,” Jack says, the final nail in the coffin. “For anything. I know you’re only doing it all for Sam. And so am I.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Dean says, sudden and desperate, begging. “Whatever you do, don’t tell him that. It’ll break him. Let him blame me if he wants. Let him hate me. But don’t you tell him you did this for him. Jack, it’ll kill him.”
“I know,” Jack says again, and gives Dean a small smile. “I won’t say anything, Dean. About… anything we talked about.”
“Good,” says Dean, voice weak with relief. “I - good. Thanks,” he adds belatedly, awkwardly. He doesn’t mean just for keeping yet another secret from Sam. He means… for everything.
Jack nods, accepting it. “You’re welcome, Dean.” He sounds tired again. “Can I - can I sleep now?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean says. In a burst of emotion he can’t quite pinpoint the source of, he leans forward and tucks Jack’s blanket under his chin. “I’ll be here, all right, kid? You need something, you tell me.”
“Okay,” Jack says, and smiles at him again. “Will you rest, too?”
“I’m good,” Dean tells him. “Don’t you worry about me. You get some rest, all right?”
“Okay,” Jack says again, and yawns. “Goodbye, Dean.”
“What?” Dean says, snapping back to full alertness. “What did you just say?”
“I said goodnight,” Jack says, like he can’t understand why Dean looks alarmed.
“Oh.” Dean relaxes again, though he’s still not entirely sure he heard Jack wrong to begin with. “Goodnight, kid. See you later.”
One last secret, he thinks, as he watches Jack drift off.
The dead make the best secret-keepers.