DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to their respective creators.
ARCHIVE: No
The following short story is based on characters
created for the television series
SUPERNATURAL & DARK ANGEL, and is set in an indeterminate time frame. -- author's note
Another Life
By Valjean
*************************************
"We have a choice," Sam said. "Seattle or Phoenix."
"Phoenix," Dean replied instantly. "We go to Phoenix."
"But Dad's trail in Seattle might not be cold yet," Sam complained. "Really, I think that's our best bet. According to his journal he went there quite a few times over the past five years so there must be something there worth checking out."
"There's nothing in Seattle," Dean said crisply.
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. We stay away from Seattle."
"Then why did Dad go there so often?" Sam persisted.
Dean sighed heavily, and drifted to the window of the small hotel room they'd checked into earlier that evening. Brushing aside the dirty beige curtain, he looked out at the lighted parking lot where rain was making the asphalt shine, old habits of constant watchfulness impossible to shake. Then he clenched his jaw. Maybe Sammy has a right to know that travelin' with big bro could put him in danger from earthly evils as well as unearthly ones.
"And while we're on the subject of enigmatic actions," Sam added, "just what are those pills you keep taking? And please don't tell me you've become an addict of some kind in the years I was away."
"Okay, I won't tell you that," Dean quipped, a small smile playing on full lips as large, intelligent hazel-green eyes continued studying the nearly empty parking lot. A car pulled in off the highway, its headlights glaring brightly, and Dean squinted slightly, black pupils constricting from inhuman wideness. Sammy has no idea. Dad saw to that ... kept my secret all these years.
"Seattle, Dean. What's in Seattle that you don't want me to know about?"
Dean closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned around to face his brother. This was going to be difficult ... "It's complicated," he said at last. "And you'd better sit down." He nodded toward the bed with its threadbare white spread. However, Sam remained standing, arms crossed in front of his chest, his youthful face suspicious and defiant.
"Spill it," Sam said coldly. "What the hell's goin' on? What happened in Seattle?"
Running fingers back through short-cropped dark blond hair, Dean glanced away one last time, then deliberately turned and looked his brother square in the eye. "Yours truly happened in Seattle," Dean said quietly. "Seattle's not about Dad, it's about me. I can't go back there, probably not ever."
"You in trouble with the law up there?" Sam wondered. What'd you do?"
"Not the law. The military."
"The military? Don't tell me you're AWOL or something. I thought you resigned from that military academy years ago."
"I did ... sort of," Dean said. "But let's just say the branch of the military I belong to is pretty much a lifetime commitment whether I like it or not."
Sam shook his head, not understanding, and his brother began to pace the room, lightly, like a nervous cat ... a comparison more appropriate than the younger man could possibly know.
Start at the beginning, Dean told himself. It's the only way the kid can ever even begin to understand. "Mom had trouble gettin' pregnant with me," he said abruptly.
Sam's eyebrows shot up. "What does that have to do anything?"
"Everything," Dean snapped. "So just shut up and listen. She and Dad wanted a kid real bad but they tried and tried and nothin' happened. Dad was assigned at the time to a military base out in Wyoming -- a secret facility where they were doin' genetic research."
"Genetic research?"
"A bunch of lab tech guys were tryin' to create a supersoldier," Dean said, still holding Sam's eyes with his own. "They were experimenting with human embryos. The geneticists asked for volunteers from the ranks of the soldiers. Mom and Dad couldn't afford conventional fertility treatment, so they joined the program. Dean smiled proudly and held his hands wide. "You're lookin' at the result."
Sam grinned and shook his head. "Yeah, right, you're sayin' you're an AWOL supersoldier and now the military wants you back. Nice try, bro, but what's the real reason you can't go back to Seattle? Some girl you jilted waitin' to kick your ass?"
"That, too," Dean acquiesced with a slight nod. "But seriously, there are people in high places who want me either dead or under their control ... people who have their headquarters in Seattle."
"You're a supersoldier?" Sam repeated, shaking his head in disbelief again.
"I was made in a lab," Dean said. "They messed with my DNA in ways you don't wanna know. In vitro and all that stuff. Then they put me back inside Mom, had her carry me to term, then let her and Dad raise me for six years before takin' me back to Manticore where my training began. Oh, after that they let Dad have me home sometimes, vacations, special occasions ... supervised closely of course, but basically I grew up in a barracks. Remember all the references to my military school education when I was a teenager and you were a brat? Well, military school meant Manticore."
"Manticore?"
"The name of the program," Dean said, now watching his brother warily because this was where the story got weird.
"Sounds familiar," Sam said. "Where have I heard that before?"
"How 'bout transgenics?" Dean asked cautiously. "That ring a bell?"
Sam's eyes lit up. "Of course! The transgenic rebellion in Seattle a few years ago. But those people were part animal. A lot of them weren't even human."
The older brother continued looking at his younger brother calmly, waiting for the light to dawn -- which it did. Sammy was, after all, exceptionally intelligent (for an ordinary). "Oh, we're all human," Dean said softly as Sam's eyes widened with horrible understanding. "Some of us just don't look as much like it as others." Turning around, Dean pulled down the collar of his leather coat in back and showed Sam the barely discernible outline of a bar code at the nape of his neck. "You remember this tattoo don't you?" he drawled. "The one I told you I got for a lark one summer in Daytona? Well guess what? It's not a teenage kid's act of rebellion. The tat's my bar code ... the identification branded on me by Manticore at birth. Now, every month or so I've gotta burn the thing off, either that or keep my hair longer than I like to." His eyes flicked to Sam's. "It's genetically encoded, just like a lot of other stuff inside of me ... my leash so to speak, as well as who I really am -- X5-494."
"Mom and Dad would never have let anyone do that to their baby!" Sam sputtered. "Mess with their kid's DNA."
"They didn't know it'd been done to me until too late," Dean replied. "Afterwards, considering the miscarriage and still birth rate among the transgenic babies, they were probably just glad to have a healthy son, and that Manticore was lettin' 'em at least partially raise me -- not that it helped me much in the long run. I still spent my formative years bein' a brainwashed lab rat and learnin' the fine art of assassination. The lab techs just loved to poke and prod me, studyin' my DNA ... They called it science. To us kids ... it was torture."
"But Manticore was dismantled," Sam said, obviously remembering more of the story. "The transgenics were dismissed and could come home, but you didn't."
"No, I couldn't just come home," Dean said bitterly. "Ya see, Manticore wasn't 'dismantled.' It was destroyed -- from within. Its supersoldier experiments were made public by a computer hacker and someone higher up decided me and my transgenic brothers and sisters were all liabilities. They tried to kill us, but a lot of us got away. Myself ... I was lucky enough to have been on the outside on a mission when the place was torched. After that, I was free, but I knew they were huntin' me so I stayed away from you and Dad. Eventually, though, us transies were supposedly granted immunity and citizenship. I was helpin' out in Terminal City, the transgenic conclave in Seattle, when Dad came lookin' for me. He said you'd left for college and that he needed me for the hunt. Things were gettin' dicey in TC -- the military usin' us for missions and not even sayin' 'thank you'. There was talk of the government layin' claim to our transgenic asses again as military property ... lockin' us up if we refused to cooperate." Dean smirked at the memory. "Let's just say I decided to get while the gettin' was good. That was over three years ago."
"And you think the military is still looking to take you back?" Sam asked. "Paranoid much, bro?"
"Hey," Dean said, somewhat offended. "Don't you get it? I'm not just a supersoldier. I'm a bioweapons system worth millions of bucks on the international market. My DNA alone is priceless, especially since there are so few X5s left alive."
"X5s?"
"My designation is X5-494," Dean explained. "It's who I am ... or rather was for a very long time. Manticore didn't let us use names. When I got out I went by 'Alec' for a year or so, and now it's 'Dean.'"
"Your name is 'Dean'," Sam said softly. "It always has been. "Dean Winchester. And I still think you're exaggerating and need to get over yourself."
Dean shrugged. "I know my real name's Dean. But I'm also 494 ... and Alec. Those are me too. As for exaggerating ..." A smirk. "I don't think so."
"Why Alec?" Sam asked.
"As in 'smart alec'. A lady I was kinda fond of at the time decided it suited me."
"And so it does," Sam agreed.
"Looks, brains, and attitude," Dean said proudly. "All courtesy of Uncle Sam and his genetic database."
"Not to mention Mom and Dad's contribution," Sam pointed out. "We've both got Mom's eyes."
Dean had to concede that, and did so with another nod as he scratched at the beard stubble on his chin.
"What did they do to you?" Sam asked, his tone sobering. "I mean on the DNA level?"
"Made me stronger, faster, and smarter than ordinaries," Dean said evenly. "Plus there's the whole super immune system thing ... the fast healing ... resistance to radiation and bioweapons ... sharper senses ..."
"Ordinaries?"
"Ordinary human beings. One's not 'genetically empowered' as we Freaks like to say."
"Like me?"
"Like you, kid. But don't feel inferior. Bein' a supersoldier has got its definite drawbacks as well.
"The meds?" Sam guessed.
"Smart boy," Dean sighed. "Yeah, the meds. Ya see, when they messed with our neurological systems they kind of cross-wired something in the X5s' brains. Our bodies can't handle serotonin very well so we have to take supplements. Back at Manticore they had this neat pill we only had to down once a week, but out here in the real world I've gotta rely on tryptophan."
"An amino acid?"
"Right alongside turkey and milk," Dean said dryly. "Yum. But if I run low on the stuff in my body first I get a wicked migraine, then I have seizures."
"And if you still don't get tryptophan?" Sam said.
"Coma. Death."
"Oh."
"Yeah. But hey, don't worry, bro. I've got it all under control."
But Sam had just realized something. "The transgenics are supposedly part animal," he said. "What about you? Do the X5s have animal DNA."
"In spades," Dean said softly.
His brother raised his eyebrows, waiting.
"Feline," his older sibling said quietly. "I'm part cat. Goes along with the super fast reflexes and extra sharp senses."
"I don't understand? What does being part cat do to you? How's it an advantage?"
"I can see in the dark."
"Oh."
"And hear things you can't begin to imagine."
"Oh."
"And I've got pretty phenomenal far-sightedness. Also, how the hell do you think I survived that jump off the bridge in Jericho?"
Sam snorted. "Dude, it's not like you landed on your feet. And don't give me any of that nine lives crap."
"Well, I didn't break my neck, or any other bones either. Most humans would have."
"Just don't tell me you've got a tail."
Dean glanced back at his own ass and chuckled. "No tail. They got rid of that with the X4s. No, bro, you'll find that most of my Frankenstein stitches are on the inside, not the outside. Hell, part of the objective of the X5 program was to make us beautiful enough to fit into the real world." Again he spread his arms wide. "And look at the result. Tell me, what's not to like?"
"You ever kill anyone, back at Manticore?" Sam asked soberly, ignoring his brother's smug attitude and attempt at humor.
"Yeah," Dean said, wanting to be completely honest while he had the chance. "A few."
"Murdered them?"
"Assassinations."
"You killed people in cold blood?"
"It was my job. I had orders."
"And that makes it right?"
"If I'd refused they'd have killed me," Dean said, for the first time becoming miffed. "They had no use for an X5 who couldn't take orders. If I'd disobeyed they'd have put me down and cut me up for body parts."
"You're exaggerating again!" Sam exclaimed.
"No!" Dean snapped. "I'm not."
"Why would Dad leave you with monsters like that, to be brainwashed and tortured and forced to kill?"
"Because he needed to protect you!" Dean shouted. "If he'd tried to take me away from Manticore ... not returned me after one of our so-called vacations ... they'd have killed you and probably him and Mom too. Like I keep sayin'. I'm valuable military property worth billions in R and D. Hell, my spunk alone's worth a million bucks an ounce. The X5s were the success story, Sam. We're the god damned supersoldiers the whole world's been tryin' to breed!"
"Only you got away," Sam said softly. "And now they want you back."
"That's right," Dean said. "Which is why I shouldn't go back to Seattle. When I was Alec I was pretty high profile for awhile, Terminal City's representative on City Council and all. I'd be recognized."
"So," Sam said. "Dad showed up just in the nick of time three years ago to rescue you from bein' forced back into slavery?"
"Yeah," Dean drawled. "But then you know Dad. His timing's always been impeccable when it comes to things like that. Sort of a sixth sense where family's concerned. You've got it too, just like me. It's how I can tell Dad's in deep shit right this very minute."
"Okay," Sam said as Dean finally allowed himself to drop into a chair. "So my brother's a supersoldier and not really human."
"Hey!" Dean sputtered. "Maybe I'm a Freak -- and proud of it I might add -- but I'm still mostly human. We're talkin' only a percent or so of feline DNA here. Just enough to give me a little advantage over you ordinaries."
"Yeah, well kitty-cat genes aside," Sam continued, "I'm glad you came clean with me about this. And we'll stay well away from Seattle ... and mice ... and catnip. Now that the band's finally back together I don't wanna risk losin' you again. Just don't expect me to scratch your belly or behind your ears or anything. And I swear, bro, if you start to purr I'm outta here."
"Very funny," Dean said dryly. "Thanks though, for understandin'."
"You're welcome," Sam said, sitting down and lying back on the bed. "Now, I think we'd both better get some sleep before heading out to Phoenix in the morning."
*****
Alec lay awake for a long time in the hotel room that night, arms behind his head and cat-eyes wide open watching shadows on the ceiling while Sam snored gently beside him, remembering Seattle and the friends and family he'd left behind three years ago. He hadn't been in contact with any of the TC gang since. For all they knew, he was dead, and he felt a pang of guilt at the thought of Joshua mourning him -- because the Big Fella especially would have been worried.
But he couldn't have stayed ... even if his Dad hadn't shown up in the old black Chevy Impala and his need for help on "the hunt." Max had made sure of it ... that he had to leave.
They'd been best friends, him and Max ... partners in running Terminal City ... partners in crime ... They'd made a good team, just like him and Sammy. For awhile, everything had been fine. Max and Logan were a couple, and he was free to date or sleep with whomever he wanted -- status quo. But slowly things had changed. Max and Logan became distant from each other -- trouble in Paradise. More and more she'd turned to him, Alec, her transgenic brother. And then one night -- when she was coming into heat and they'd both had a few drinks at Crash -- in a dark corner of an alley beside their motorcycles he'd leaned in and kissed her. Afterwards they'd gone back to his place. It had been the best sex he'd ever had in his life ... something he'd been wanting to do for at least a year. In the morning, he was ready to do something Alec-the-tomcat had sworn would never happen. He was ready to commit to a relationship.
I love you, Max.
Alec ... don't say that. Last night was a huge mistake. I love Logan, not you. This can't happen again. In fact ... I think it'd be best if you just go away.
It still hurt, even after all this time, when he thought about the look in her eyes as she'd said those cutting words ... the utter coldness. He'd felt it too, in an empathic sense, Max's disgust with having been with him.
Two hours later Dad had shown up in his Chevy Impala looking for his son -- a sign from Heaven (or Hell) if there ever was one in Alec's opinion. A part of "Alec" would always remain with his brethren in Seattle, but "Dean" had driven out of town that day with his biological father and never looked back.
"And that," Dean said quietly out loud in the dark, "is the end of that story--" He looked over at his sleeping brother. "--and this is the beginning of another." Then Alec/Dean/X5-494 sighed contentedly and finally allowed himself to sleep.
THE END
###
PLEASE REVIEW
