SPN: The Guardian
Title: The Guardian
Author: egoteprovoco
Rating: PG
Characters: Sam and Dean
Challenge: Something New!
Summary: With only a month left before his year is up, Dean is puzzled by his brother's internet habits.
Dean had never really held out much hope that Sam would be able to save him. Still, he can't help feeling a little depressed when he just stops looking. The side trips to libraries and religious sites stop. The whispered phone calls to Bobby when Sam thinks Dean is sleeping stop. He even stops asking Dean to repeat the exact language of the contract in case there could be a legal loophole.
They don't talk about it, of course. Even for a non-Winchester, it would be hard to start a conversation with, "Well, I guess you're going to Hell after all. Sorry, dude." For his part, Dean tries to ignore the upcoming deadline and live as if absolutely nothing was wrong. Sam pretty much spends all of his free time online. It isn't research, Dean knows that. When Sam researches he makes a little frowny face and stares intently at the screen as if he could actually will the answers to present themselves. (Dean's never told him this, but he used to make the exact same face as a toddler when he was trying to make his round, square, and triangular blocks fit into the appropriate holes in his play set.) These days he only makes his usual web surfing face: hours of blankness broken up by a few minutes of something that vaguely resembles guilt or sneakiness. Dean assumes that's his porn expression.
He doesn't intend to snoop, really. He only intended to use the computer for a few minutes to check his email. Then, before he knows it, he's written half of a long, melodramatic letter to Cassie and -honestly- anything would be better than that. He only checks Sam's browser history as a distraction. Apparently the kid has already passed through most of the Stages of Grief. Or maybe he's just found religion.
One page after another is filled with cotton-candy stories of hope and survival. There are bulletin boards where people comfort each other after suffering various losses. Blogs of people who are battling terminal diseases. One site, that all of the other sites seem to link to, has some nauseating story about an angel that protects the righteous from all sources of evil. It's ridiculously descriptive too...the supposed angel is described from the top of its "golden" head to the bottom of its "sandal clad" feet. The entire thing is an amateurish ripoff of every angel story he has ever heard decorated with some symbols that he's pretty sure have nothing to do with anything divine. Dean is torn between hilarity at the thought of the things some people will believe and absolute sickening fear that Sam is one of those people. He doesn't even try to hide his snooping when Sam comes back in. Just sits at the computer - with the hideous angel site open - and waits for an explanation. Raises an eyebrow, even.
When Sam sees what Dean has been up to, he looks a little uncomfortable. Shifty. Apparently, that wasn't Sam's porn face after all. It was his angel face.
Dean wishes he had just been looking at some really disgusting porn.
"It's, ah, not what you think," Sam stammers.
"No? So you haven't stopped looking for a way to save me because you decided to put all of your faith in freaking angels?"
"No. Well, yes. But-"
"Come on! After what happened in Providence? There Is No Such Thing!"
"Maybe there weren't," Sam says mysteriously, "But there will be." He points at the computer screen...the hideous angel website. "I made that. I've put links to it all over the internet. Every angel site. Every religious site. Every site where people go to look for some kind of hope. I get over 20,000 hits every day." He stops and looks at Dean as if expecting to be congratulated. Dean just stares back.
"Don't you recognize the symbol?"
Dean looks again at the ugly website. At the symbol that had looked so out of place among stories of angels. Realization slowly dawns. "Well, fuck," he says, smiling for the first time in ages. "You're making a tulpa. An angelic tulpa."
Sam just smiles back.
Author's Note: Obviously, the Tulpa is Something New. If I were a more ambitious author, I would follow this with a saga in which Dean's newly created guardian angel recognizes Sam as a source of evil, and chaos and angst ensue. But I'm an extremely lazy writer, so this is it.
Author: egoteprovoco
Rating: PG
Characters: Sam and Dean
Challenge: Something New!
Summary: With only a month left before his year is up, Dean is puzzled by his brother's internet habits.
Dean had never really held out much hope that Sam would be able to save him. Still, he can't help feeling a little depressed when he just stops looking. The side trips to libraries and religious sites stop. The whispered phone calls to Bobby when Sam thinks Dean is sleeping stop. He even stops asking Dean to repeat the exact language of the contract in case there could be a legal loophole.
They don't talk about it, of course. Even for a non-Winchester, it would be hard to start a conversation with, "Well, I guess you're going to Hell after all. Sorry, dude." For his part, Dean tries to ignore the upcoming deadline and live as if absolutely nothing was wrong. Sam pretty much spends all of his free time online. It isn't research, Dean knows that. When Sam researches he makes a little frowny face and stares intently at the screen as if he could actually will the answers to present themselves. (Dean's never told him this, but he used to make the exact same face as a toddler when he was trying to make his round, square, and triangular blocks fit into the appropriate holes in his play set.) These days he only makes his usual web surfing face: hours of blankness broken up by a few minutes of something that vaguely resembles guilt or sneakiness. Dean assumes that's his porn expression.
He doesn't intend to snoop, really. He only intended to use the computer for a few minutes to check his email. Then, before he knows it, he's written half of a long, melodramatic letter to Cassie and -honestly- anything would be better than that. He only checks Sam's browser history as a distraction. Apparently the kid has already passed through most of the Stages of Grief. Or maybe he's just found religion.
One page after another is filled with cotton-candy stories of hope and survival. There are bulletin boards where people comfort each other after suffering various losses. Blogs of people who are battling terminal diseases. One site, that all of the other sites seem to link to, has some nauseating story about an angel that protects the righteous from all sources of evil. It's ridiculously descriptive too...the supposed angel is described from the top of its "golden" head to the bottom of its "sandal clad" feet. The entire thing is an amateurish ripoff of every angel story he has ever heard decorated with some symbols that he's pretty sure have nothing to do with anything divine. Dean is torn between hilarity at the thought of the things some people will believe and absolute sickening fear that Sam is one of those people. He doesn't even try to hide his snooping when Sam comes back in. Just sits at the computer - with the hideous angel site open - and waits for an explanation. Raises an eyebrow, even.
When Sam sees what Dean has been up to, he looks a little uncomfortable. Shifty. Apparently, that wasn't Sam's porn face after all. It was his angel face.
Dean wishes he had just been looking at some really disgusting porn.
"It's, ah, not what you think," Sam stammers.
"No? So you haven't stopped looking for a way to save me because you decided to put all of your faith in freaking angels?"
"No. Well, yes. But-"
"Come on! After what happened in Providence? There Is No Such Thing!"
"Maybe there weren't," Sam says mysteriously, "But there will be." He points at the computer screen...the hideous angel website. "I made that. I've put links to it all over the internet. Every angel site. Every religious site. Every site where people go to look for some kind of hope. I get over 20,000 hits every day." He stops and looks at Dean as if expecting to be congratulated. Dean just stares back.
"Don't you recognize the symbol?"
Dean looks again at the ugly website. At the symbol that had looked so out of place among stories of angels. Realization slowly dawns. "Well, fuck," he says, smiling for the first time in ages. "You're making a tulpa. An angelic tulpa."
Sam just smiles back.
Author's Note: Obviously, the Tulpa is Something New. If I were a more ambitious author, I would follow this with a saga in which Dean's newly created guardian angel recognizes Sam as a source of evil, and chaos and angst ensue. But I'm an extremely lazy writer, so this is it.