Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1121942.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester, Jessica_Moore/Sam_Winchester
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-01-06 Chapters: 5/? Words: 3942
****** A Lifetime of Love ******
by Morgana
Summary
     A look at the life of one Sam Winchester, as told from one birthday
     to another
***** Chapter 1 *****
Dean was pouting.

He knew it wasn't right. He was a big boy now and shouldn't be sulking in his
room, but it wasn't fair! Mommy had finally had the baby, and it was the
brother he'd hoped for, and he wasn't going to get to see him for two whole
days! Daddy got to see him every night, but Dean had to stay with Mrs Willis
and her stupid cats who were always sticking their butts in his face whenever
he sat down to watch TV. So he figured he was entitled to a little bit of
pouting.

A knock on the door made him look up to see Daddy leaning against the door
frame. "Hey champ, everything okay?"

Dean just scowled at him. Daddy knew very well that everything was not okay,
but Dean wasn't going to let him make him feel better, he wasn't! Daddy walked
over to kneel down in front of him, squeezing his knee with one hand. "C'mon,
now, Deano. You know better than to act like this."

"But it's not fair!" The words burst out of him before he could stop them, and
he bit down hard on his lip to try to keep from bawling like a baby. 

Daddy sat down next to him. "What's not fair?"

"I can't see Sammy!" Tears slid down his cheeks and he drew in a hitching
breath. "I was good like you and Mommy said I had to be and I waited as
patiently as I could and now I can't see him!"

"Oh boy," Daddy muttered under his breath as he pulled Dean into his lap. Dean
buried his face in Daddy's shirt while one big, warm hand rubbed his back.
"Shhhh.... it's okay, kiddo. Sammy's coming home real soon, remember? And then
you'll get to see him all the time - probably more than you want. You're gonna
be his big brother for the rest of your life, after all."

"But it won't ever be like today!" Dean protested. Sammy wouldn't be brand new
by the time he got home, not like he was now. He didn't know how to explain
that to Daddy without sounding stupid, so he just burrowed in closer and tried
to calm down. "Why can't I see him like you can? I'll be real good if I can go
to the hospital with you, I promise!"

Daddy sighed and patted his back. "I wish you could, Dean. But the hospital
rules say you have to be older to visit someone." He paused for a second, then
asked, "You want me to stay with you? We can order pizza and watch the baseball
game."

Dean peeked up at him. He had to admit that pizza and baseball sounded better
than going over to Mrs Willis'. "But what about Mommy and Sammy?"

Daddy smiled. "I'll call Mommy and explain. And Sammy's too young to know what
he's missing out on. We'll do it again when he's older and he can enjoy it with
us."

Dean thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "Okay. And I can tell him
about it when he gets home, right?"

"Right." Daddy laughed and set him back on the bed. "I'm gonna go call Mommy
and then order the pizza. You want pepperoni?"

"Yeah! And extra cheese and sausage," he added, grinning widely as he thought
about getting to spend the night with Daddy. It was almost as good as getting
to see Sammy, and the promise of telling him about it later helped. Like Daddy
said, he was going to be a big brother for the rest of his life, so he'd have
lots of time to talk to Sammy.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Sammy's happy laugh rang out as Dean scooped him up and spun him around. "It's
your birthday today, Sammy! You're two whole years old!" 

"You're going to be a lot less happy about it when he throws up all over you
because you shook him up like that," their father pointed out. 

Dean just shrugged, too used to it by now to be all that grossed out by the
prospect. Still, he didn't want Dad to get mad before they got to have Sammy's
birthday treat, so he slowed to a stop and hugged Sammy, who wrapped arms and
legs around him like a little monkey and squealed, "More, Dean!" 

"Dad's right, Sammy," Dean told the toddler, hugging him again to soften the
denial. "Besides, you don't wanna get sick on your birthday 'cause then you
wouldn't get your present!" 

Sammy cocked his head at him, curiosity shining brightly in his eyes.
"Present?" he repeated. "Like Chrismuss?" 

"Like Christmas," Dad agreed, walking over to tousle first Sammy's and then
Dean's hair. "And cupcakes, too - one for each of you." 

Sammy squealed right in Dean's ear and bounced hard enough that Dean had to
tighten his grip or risk dropping him. He'd discovered cupcakes last fall, when
Dean brought one home with him after a classmate's mother brought them to
school for her birthday. As soon as Sammy had seen Dean eating it, he'd toddled
over and opened his mouth like a baby bird, but Dean had made him say 'Please,
Dean' before he'd let him have any. Dean was worried about how little Sammy
talked, even though Dad said it was normal and Dean had been the same way at
his age. Dean didn't know how to tell Dad that he didn't think that counted,
since he'd had Mom to help him and Sammy didn't. 

He tried not to talk about Mom too much - whenever he mentioned her Dad got
that really sad look in his eyes, the one that always made Dean's stomach hurt.
So Dean did the best he could on his own. He could usually get Sammy to talk
back to Big Bird when Sesame Street was on, and he talked to Sammy all the
time, told him about his day at school and what kind of homework he had, how he
was learning to read and how he'd teach Sammy when he got older. Sometimes when
Dad was working on the car, Dean even told Sammy secret things, things he
wouldn't tell anyone else, like Sarah Eckerson kissing him at recess or how
much he wanted a leather jacket like Dad's when he grew up. 

"Dean..." Something about the way Sammy said his name made Dean think he'd been
trying to get his attention for a while. He shook his head to make the thoughts
that had been gathering there go away and smiled at his brother. 

"Yeah, Sammy?" 

"Do you get a birfday too?" Big hazel eyes stared at him while tiny white teeth
sank into the baby curve of Sammy's lower lip. Dean hugged Sammy hard again and
opened his mouth to tell him about birthdays, but Dad's laughter cut him off. 

"Dean's already had his birthday this year, Sammy," he explained. "After
Christmas, when we went out for ice cream, remember?" 

His brother scrunched his face up for a second, then shook his head. Dean
hugged him again. "It's okay, Sammy," he assured him. "We both get a birthday
every year." 

Sammy's face split into a big grin. "Every year!" he cheered. "Cupcakes every
year!" 

Dad laughed again. "Well, I guess we know what's important to you, kiddo," he
teased, walking over to lift Sammy out of Dean's arms. He held his free hand
out to Dean. "Okay, let's go get those cupcakes, huh?" 

"Yeah!" Sammy crowed, flinging his arms around Dad. "Cupcakes, Dean!" 

Dean slipped his hand into Dad's and grinned up at Sammy. He had a feeling that
as long as there were cupcakes, Sammy wouldn't have too much trouble talking.
***** Chapter 3 *****
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Sammy,
happy birthday to you!" Dean's tuneless singing drifted into the kitchen from
the room the boys were sharing, and John smiled. By his best estimate, Dean was
on his thirtieth or so repetition of the birthday song. He probably should've
warned Dean that singing to a toddler invariably led to having to repeat the
song ad infinitum, but knowing Dean, he wouldn't have believed him until he'd
tried it for himself. 

John shook his head and flipped the sandwich in the pan. Grilled cheese wasn't
much of a birthday supper, but it was one of Sammy's favorites and thank God,
it was cheap. Still, he wished he could do better for his boys - they deserved
better than the rootless life they'd been living for the past three years. He
checked on the tomato soup, slid Sammy's sandwich onto a plate, and set about
making a grilled cheese with ham for Dean, humming absently to himself while he
waited for the next round of the birthday song to start up. 

"Dad!" The spatula clattered to the floor as John took off for the bedroom at a
run, his son's cry spurring him to action. "DAD!" 

Bursting through the door ready to put himself between his boys and whatever
might be threatening them, John was nonplussed to see, instead of the scene of
terror and danger that his imagination had conjured up, Dean smiling up at him
from where he sat with Sammy on the floor in front of the bed. As though he
hadn't just scared his father out of a good ten years of his life, Dean beamed
up at him and said, "I taught Sammy to read!" 

"Sam I am!" Sammy chimed in, looking up from the battered red book he held with
a bright smile. John felt something wrench in his chest at the sight of that
smile. It was Mary's smile, shining and open, the smile that had accompanied
his proposal and Dean's birth and every other important moment of his life
since he'd met her, right up until the fire had taken her away. Now her son
looked at him with that same smile, and John knew he'd move heaven and earth to
make sure that he never had to bear his mother's pain. 

"That's good, Sammy," he told him. "Keep that up and you'll be reading in no
time." 

"He is reading!" Dean insisted. "I taught him, Dad - he can read the whole book
all by himself." 

John sighed and wondered again how Mary had always been able to get through to
Dean when he got like this, digging his heels in on an issue. "He's not really
reading, Dean. He's got the book memorized." And well he should - ever since
Dean had begged him to buy it at the library's used book sale, Sammy had
insisted on having it for his bedtime story at least three or four times a
week. It was his favorite, probably because there was a Sam in the book, but
for whatever reason, they'd read it enough times that John was pretty sure all
three of them could recite it forwards, backwards, and upside down by now. 

Dean wasn't about to accept his explanation, though. "Sammy can read," he
persisted. "Ask him, Dad." 

He thought about arguing, then decided it was too much effort. "Sammy? You
wanna show me how you can read?" 

Sammy nodded and clambered up into his lap as soon as he sat down on the bed.
He opened the book again and pointed to the words. "I am Sam," he said. "Sam I
am!" 

"Good job," John said, before he could get started on the whole book. He turned
a few pages, then pointed to a sentence. "Can you read that, Sammy?" 

"I would not eat green eggs and ham," he said, following John's finger with
careful deliberation. "I do not like them, Sam-I-am!" He turned another bright
smile up to him. 

Well. So apparently he could read. John wondered if he needed to look into
getting Sammy some kind of tutoring, something to make up for him not being
able to go to preschool the way he vaguely remembered Dean doing when he was
Sammy's age. Maybe he'd talk to Jim about teaching him, even see about adding a
little Latin in as well once he was reading really well. Come to think of it,
that might not be a bad idea for Dean as well. John decided he'd have to give
Jim a call after the boys had gone to bed. 

Right now, though, there was a four-year-old gazing up at him with eager eyes.
"That's great, kiddo." John hugged him and eased him out of his lap. "Listen, I
need to go finish supper, so why don't you stay here and read to Dean some
more? Maybe he'll even sing for you again." 

Sam's squeal of glee drowned out Dean's aggravated cry of, "Dad!" and John
grinned to himself as he made his escape back to the kitchen, just in time to
hear Dean dutifully start singing again. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday
to you! Happy birthday, dear Sammy, happy birthday to you!"
***** Chapter 4 *****
A heavy weight landed on his stomach, driving all the air out of his lungs with
a whoosh. Dean's eyes flew open to see a lopsided grin aimed at him. "I'm six!"
Sammy crowed.

"Yeah, I'll say you're sick," he grumbled, shoving him away. "Get off me."

Sammy scooted to the side, but didn't get off the bed. "Not sick, silly. I'm
six - it's my birthday today!"

"So you had to wake me up at the asscrack of dawn?" 

A torrent of giggles answered him. "You said 'ass'!"

Dean glared at his brother and turned over, pulling the covers up. "Go 'way,
Sammy. You can wake me up later, 'kay?"

There was a long pause before a wavering, "Okay," answered him. Dean felt the
bed shift under him as Sammy slid back down to the floor. He closed his eyes
and tried to go back to sleep, doing his best not to think about how the sad
little voice that had replaced the jubilant shout in just seconds. But the
universe was apparently bound and determined to punish Dean for existing,
because when he reached the bedroom door, Sammy muttered, "You said we were
gonna watch cartoons."

Shit. He'd forgotten all about the cartoons. Dad usually took them out for
pancakes on their birthdays, but Dad was tracking a werewolf and hadn't been
able to make it back in time, and Dean had hated seeing Sammy's face so sad
when he'd realized Dad wasn't going to be there, so he'd offered to watch
cartoons with him even though he usually hated cartoons. They were just so
babyish, nothing at all like the real heroes like Dad and the other hunters who
were out there risking their lives, but Sammy didn't know about that yet. So
Dean did his best not to say too many bad things about Superman around Sammy
(even if Batman could've totally taken Superwuss out in, like, three seconds).
But cartoons had seemed like a good way to start making it up to Sammy that Dad
wasn't there.

At least, they had been before Dean had gone and fucked everything up. Guilt
formed an uneasy knot in his stomach, making him swallow hard as he shoved the
comforter down and slid out of bed, then went in search of his brother.

He found him huddled in a forlorn little ball on the couch, staring mournfully
at the TV, but he wasn't watching cartoons. Instead, there was some kind of
program with a guy in a funny hat out in the desert. Dean didn't say anything
at first, just went to fill two bowls with the Coco Puffs he'd lifted from the
corner grocery store a couple of days ago. He added the last of the milk, then
handed one of the bowls to Sammy as he walked over to the couch and took a seat
next to him. "So... six, huh?"

"Uh-huh," Sammy mumbled around a mouthful of cereal. "Dad said I can start
school next year, 'member? All day, just like you."

"Trust me, Sammy, it's no big deal," Dean assured him. "Teachers always trying
to tell you what to do, handing out homework every time you turn around." Not
to mention the other kids, who didn't have a clue about what the real world was
like. He'd rather hang out with Sammy, and how pathetic was that, anyway, that
his six-year-old brother was his best friend?

Sammy just shrugged and took another bite of his cereal, and Dean felt like the
world's biggest jerk for making him look like that on his birthday. He looked
over at the TV, where the guy was walking around a lot of scattered blocks. It
didn't seem all that interesting to him, but Sam's eyes were locked on it like
the guy had the answers to all of life's puzzles. "Whatcha watchin'?"

"You wouldn't like it."

"C'mon, Sammy, don't be like that." Dean jostled him a little with his elbow,
and just like always, raised his arm as Sammy curled up against his side. 'What
is it?"

"They're talking about this tomb they found."

Personally, Dean couldn't have imagined anything less interesting, but he knew
better than to say so. "Yeah? Who's 'they'?"

Sammy looked up at him, his eyes getting that intent look they only had when he
was trying to figure out if Dean was serious. Finally he said, "A team from the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo."

Dean wondered when Egypt had gotten more interesting than cartoons. "So what's
in the tomb? A mummy?" That might be kind of cool, fighting a mummy.

"No, the mummy was stolen in an-ti-qui-ty." Sammy pronounced the word
carefully, obviously repeating something he'd just heard. "What's that, Dean?"

"A long time ago," he replied, glad that he knew the answer to that even if he
didn't know much about mummies. "Since when did you get into all this Egypt
stuff, anyway?"

He felt Sammy shrug. "Uncle Bobby had some books and stuff that he let me look
at when we were there for Thanksgiving. They were pretty cool."

Dean was willing to bet they weren't nearly as cool as the books Uncle Bobby
kept up on the top shelves, the really old ones that had pictures of monsters
and descriptions of how to kill them. When Dad got back from his trip, maybe
they could take Sammy out to shoot at bottles, now that he was six. Dean hoped
so; he wanted to show him all the stuff he'd learned, teach Sammy how to
wrestle and shoot and sneak up on monsters just like Dad had taught him. Right
now, though, he'd have to pretend they were just like everybody else for a
little while longer.

"Yeah, Egypt's cool," he agreed, pleased when Sammy nodded and snuggled a
little tighter against him. Dean settled back to watch the rest of the show,
although he wasn't really paying attention. All he could think about was how he
couldn't wait to show his brother the truth about what Dad did and how he and
Uncle Bobby were the real superheroes. He just knew Sammy was going to love
hunting as much as he did.
***** Chapter 5 *****
“I don’t wanna go to Plucky Pennywhistle’s!”

Dean ignored his younger brother’s complaint and tightened his grip on his
hand, towing him inexorably closer to the life-size clown statue by the
entrance. “Of course you do. It’s your birthday, man. Everybody wants to go to
Plucky’s for their birthday. And this is the last one before you're an actual
teenager, so you might as well do it up right.”

“De-ean!”

“Sam-my,” he mimicked.

His brother didn’t seem to get the joke. Instead, he yanked his hand out of
Dean’s and planted his feet. Dean sighed and turned around, only to see Sam
glaring at him like he wanted to set his hair on fire. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Go.
To. Plucky. Pennywhistle’s,” he repeated, enunciating every word, as though
Dean were either deaf or retarded.

“Well, tough luck, dude.” Dean had a date with Brittany from his history class,
and if the pink streaks in her hair and the tattoos on her arm were any
indication, she promised to be one freaky chick. You know, in the
really, really good way. And he wasn’t going to miss out on this because it was
his bratty little brother’s birthday. Besides, dropping him off at Plucky’s
with ten dollars just proved he was the awesomest big brother in the entire
world, didn’t it?

Sam crossed his arms. “If it’s my birthday, then we should be doing
something I want to do, right?”

“Depends on what you wanna do.” He could probably pay for a movie, maybe even
throw in some popcorn and candy, too. 

There was a gleam in the hazel eyes that made him think, not for this first
time, that his brother had to be evil. “I want to go to the museum.”

He groaned. "Not again, man." If it was just the museum, Dean probably wouldn't
care. It was cheaper than either the movies or Plucky's, but Sam never wanted
to go alone. They'd been to the stupid museum four times in two week, and every
time they went, they always had to see -

"I want to go to the Egyptian room." 

Great. Mummies again. "Dude, I swear, you need to, like, lay off the Discovery
channel," he complained. It seemed like every time he turned around, Sam was
watching another stupid documentary about people digging in the dirt for
mummies and shit. This fixation with ancient civilizations really had to go -
especially now that it was threatening to derail his plans.

Sam's chin was jutting out in a way that pretty much always meant he got his
own way. "I want to go to the museum," he repeated. "It's my birthday, and
you're supposed to take me where I want to go. Dad said."

"He didn't say anywhere you wanted to go," Dean protested, but already he knew
it was a losing battle. Sam probably wouldn't rat him out to Dad (he never did)
but he'd give him that look, the one that always made him feel like he'd
crawled out from under a rock just so he could stomp on a puppy's head. And
Dad had given him an extra twenty before he left so he could get Sam a treat
for his birthday.

With a sigh, Dean resolved himself to spending the day trudging around deserted
hallways staring at boring ass mummies instead of getting into Brittany's
pants. He told himself he was the very best big brother ever as he threw an arm
around Sam's shoulders and headed back to the car. "Okay, fine. We'll go to the
stupid museum. But I'm taking the remote control when we get back home."

"Okay," Sam agreed, which probably meant he was already planning on a way to
get around him. "Hey, Dean?'

"Yeah?"

"Can we get sushi and teriyaki chicken for dinner?"

"What?!?"

Sam looked up at him, his eyes bigger than any human's should be. "Andrew said
there's a place he and his mom go for dinner near the museum. It has sushi and
teriyaki chicken, and it's really good."

No. No way. Dean opened his mouth to tell him just that and suggest pizza
instead, but then he looked down at his brother and the words refused to come
out. "Yeah," he sighed. "We'll check it out. No promises, though."

"Thanks, Dean!" Sam threw his arms around his waist and Dean ruffled his hair,
then gave him a gentle shove towards the car.

Yep, definitely the very best, awesomest big brother in the history of the
universe.
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