Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jack has always wondered how human function. After all, most of the humans he meets seem fragile. The Winchester are the ones that he learned the most about humanity from, and how the human body functions. Though once he starts getting to know other people, that’s when he starts to question things. After all, it seems like they’re more superhuman than anyone else.

Sam doesn’t eat much, and Dean only eats junk food and pie. They both get hit in the head more than their bodies should reasonably be able to handle. Also, all Dean drinks is beer, and Sam drinks a lot too. They drink with pills, and are a little too quick to brush off injuries. The one thing that he sees legitimately affect them is exhaustion, but even that takes longer than it should to kick in.

One time Jack walked in to find Sam sitting at the table with a bunch of books. They were scattered around his seat, and one was open in front of him. He was sitting with his chin in his hand, and his eyes were half closed. He looked drowsy, and half asleep.

“Hi, Sam. What are you doing?” Jack asked, walking up to Sam. He wrung his hands, curious, but anxious about interrupting.

“Oh, I’m just researching. You’re welcome to sit down and join me if you want.”

“You took tired.”

“Oh, I’m fine. I just need some coffee, or something.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“I don’t really know. I’ve been at this for almost ten hours, and I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to take to find what I need.”

“I’ll help then.”

Sam blinked owlishly as if he didn’t think Jack would actually take him up on it. He pushed his phone over, turning it on as he does. There was a picture on there of some sort of symbol.

“We’re trying to figure out what this symbol is. So look for this image, and or anything that looks similar. If you find something similar, we can look more closely at the lore surrounding it.”

Jack nodded, and Sam motioned towards one of the piles of books.

“These are the ones that I haven’t gotten to yet.”

Jack grabbed one, and started flipping through it. Sam flipped the pages about a third as fast as Jack did, and he had to keep forcing his eyes back open every time he blinked. Jack tried to keep his eyes on the book in front of him, but occasionally he would get distracted watching Sam. Sam’s eyes would water as he yawned repeatedly, turning the area around his eyes red as though he was crying. His posture was slouched, and his guard was completely down. Part of Jack felt happy that Sam trusted him that much, but the other part wondered if that was wise. Jack eventually focused fully on the book in front of him. Half an hour later, footsteps drew his attention from where he was reading.

Dean walked in, and they locked eyes. Jack glanced back to Sam, who was now asleep with his head in his arms. Dean squinted at Jack.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for information. I haven’t found it yet.”

“Alright, well, take that somewhere else. We wouldn’t want to wake Sam up.”

Jack looked down for a second before nodding. “Alright, I can do that.”

He grabbed the book that he was reading, and the last two that he hadn’t finished yet, then headed to the kitchen to set up at the table in there.

Another time, Jack walked into the kitchen to find Dean already asleep at the table. Dean was normally still on edge when he was asleep. Something felt different this time, and it took Jack a second to figure out what was going on. Normally Dean would be at least a little awake once someone approached him, and he’d either go back to sleep, or wake himself up fully depending on how much he trusts them. This time, he didn’t even stir. Jack looked around, then sighed. There were beer bottles scattered around, and some kind of burnt mess still on the stove.

He grabbed the trash can, and took it with him as he picked up bottles. He threw them straight into the bin, and once he was done with that, he wiped all the surfaces down with a Clorox except for the part that Dean was laying on. After that he headed to the stove to start cleaning that. He removed the pot, scraped it down, and set it to soak. Then he wiped down the counters and the stove. He cleaned up any remnants of the cooking disaster. After that, he settled down to watch over Dean. It’s not as though he rationally thought something was going to happen, but he had just slept through all the noise Jack just made.

So Jack quickly grabbed a few things so he could work on trying to move them while Dean was asleep. He was close enough that nothing was going to happen to Dean, but far enough away that he could work with his powers. He worked on moving the objects into a design a couple of inches off of the ground. He was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, his face scrunched up in concentration.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, his voice rough from sleep.

Jack jumped, dropping all of his trinkets. “Oops.”

He glanced at the clock, surprised to see that he had been sitting there for an hour.

“I was just working on something.”

“On the floor?” Dean asked, looking around. He frowned. “Wasn’t my beer right in front of me?”

“I thought you were done with it. I cleaned up.”

“Oh, that explains it. I don’t remember this place looking this good when I went to sleep. Why are you on the floor though?”

“I just thought this seemed like a good place for this,” Jack lied, knowing that Dean wouldn’t like the real answer.

He might have seen through what Jack was saying, but he also might have thought that Jack was just being weird. Dean nodded.

“Alright, just don’t stay there too long.”

Jack nodded too, turning back to what he was doing. He was smiling gently.

The next time he saw either one of them fall asleep it was actually both of them at the same time. They were working a case, and Sam turned on camera footage from the building where the first victim was killed. Then started it a few hours before the woman was killed since they were looking for anything that could tell them who their monster was, and he had come back to this building a few times since then. So, Jack fidgeted and tried to keep watching. Eventually he managed to override his small attention span by tricking his brain into thinking that there isn’t anything else to think about, or look at. It helped that he doesn’t have to blink as often. He watched as countless people walk past, but none of them threw off any red flags.

It was hours later when a noise finally drew his attention away from the footage. It sounded kind of like a snort. However, the first thing he noticed when he looked over at Sam and Dean is that both of their eyes were closed. He sat up straighter to get a better look at them as Dean snored again. They were sitting next to each other, Dean’s head resting on Sam’s shoulder while Sam’s head was tipped straight back.

They must have been tired. I mean, this is also ridiculously boring. I won’t wake them up. I can watch this by myself, and I won’t miss anything.

Jack turned back to the TV with renewed motivation, determined find this guy so he didn’t have to wake Sam and Dean up for a while.