The Family Business Chronicle

By PaBurke

Summary/Challenge: Sam is looking for something in Dean's duffel bag and finds out something totally unexpected about Dean. What it is is up to the author. I would take anything but would prefer that it not be Sam finding out Dean has a child, wife or lover, college acceptance letter or SAT scores.

Rating: Gen, kid-friendly

Spoilers: Season two or three-ish. A bit of a Criminal Minds cameo from after Season three.

Disclaimer: Not mine

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Sam had been feeling itchy and had decided to clean all the guns. It was normally Dean's job, but Dean was out doing who-knows-what and Sam just didn't want to look at a computer screen anymore. He had cleaned his, all of the ones scattered through the hotel room. Only two of Dean's personal firearms remained in his duffle, unclean. So Sam decided to do his brother a favor and dug through his brother's clothes to find the guns.

His hand found a small digital camera first.

Sam frowned at it and flipped it over in his hands. The thing was tiny. Something this small would be ridiculously easy to hide, use and then to slide into pockets. That explained why Sam had never seen it before, but why would Dean have had a digital camera to begin with? And why hide its existence from Sam? Obviously, for some reason, Dean didn't want Sam to know about its existence.

A quick glance out the motel window and Sam knew that Dean was still out driving the Impala. He slipped the memory card out of the camera and lined it up with the appropriate drive on his laptop. Just to be on the safe side, he hit ctrl-A, ctrl-C, switched over to his personal photo folder on the laptop and hit ctrl-V. His fingers tapped nervously as he waited for everything to copy over. It took almost ten minutes.

Finally.

The computer indicated that it was done. Sam ejected the memory card, put it back into the camera and put the camera back into the duffle. While he was at it, he found and pulled out the two guns that he had been aiming for in the first place. He glanced out the window again; still no Dean. He would be careful not to get too involved in Dean's secret.

Sam double-clicked on the first thumbnail. The picture was of a personal note.

It read:

Dean, I used to have a job like yours. It helped me to have a physical reminder of those I had helped save. Those photos were the only things I took with me when I left the job. This camera is for you to do the same. Take care of yourself (mentally and physically), Jason

The first picture was of some grizzly, balding guy getting into a two-door sedan. The next picture was of a newspaper article of the legend of some child ghost that repeatedly led well-meaning out-of-towners to their death. The fourth picture was of a girl in a soccer uniform, the fifth of the page in their father's journal about trolls. The even numbered pictures were of people, the odd numbered pictures were of monsters or ghosts. If Sam was making the correct assumptions, Dean had had a hand in saving all these people. He was proud of his brother.

Sam was reminded of how Dean viewed their life: Saving people, hunting things, the family business. People came first, the monsters came second and it was summed up as 'family business.'

If that was the family motto, this was the family chronicle.

Sam only regretted that Dean felt the need to hide it from even him.

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