AN: I haven't posted a fic in nine months! Stylistically, I haven't changed much, but I have gotten into a habit of putting titles in lowercase letters and abandoning quotation marks in favor of italics, so there's always that.
This is my first SPN fic, so I hope everyone likes it. Shout out to loveandzelink because she's ninety percent of the reason I wrote this and she's awesome.
Sam was probably too young at the time to remember it, but sometimes when the nightmares were too loud and Dean couldn't sleep he would lay further back in his motel bed and think, When I was younger, I used to play baseball.
He didn't remember when it started. He and Dad were probably curled up on the couch, watching a game while Mom was in the hospital with Sam. They could have sprawled out over every inch of the red plaid sofa but they sat together on one end, Dean in his father's lap with the warm, steady thump of his father's heartbeat pressed into his shoulder blades. Dad probably would have said, I'll teach you how to play that. We can practice a lot and get really good at it, and then when Mom and Sammie come home we can show them just how good you are and I'm sure they'd love that.
And Dean's eyes glowed. You mean it?
His father smiled. 'Course I do, Dean. Let's make them proud.
What Dean remembers is after that. He used to stand in the backyard and swing that bat so many times his arms ached for days. His father liked to stop him and tell him, It's not the swing that counts. You can swing all day, but that won't get you anywhere. It's the way the bat hits the ball; it's the connection that really means something.
Dean was never a prodigy, but sometimes he felt like he was. He would hit easy shots at Dad, but the old man would miss them on purpose and take his time retrieving them while Dean ran between their homemade maple-leaf, potted plant, tree-trunk bases and skid into the twig home plate grinning so hard his mouth hurt.
His mother never joined them when they played. She stayed inside and took care of brand-new baby Sammie. But even then Dean could always count on her to make a comment on his grass-stained, ripped-up jeans. She'd tuck Sam into his crib and say, What in the world are you men up to out there?
Dean would giggle and hug her leg and tell her, I'm practicing baseball so I can be real good and we can teach Sammie and we can all play together. You think Sammie will like baseball, Mom?
His mother scooped him up into her arms and kissed his forehead. I think Sammie will like playing with you.
Of course, the baseball ended a month later in blood and fire. When Dean ran out the door into that cold, shimmering dark and watched his world turn to ash, he forgot that children were allowed to run barefoot between bases and spend their time just being children. Neither he nor Dad picked up their gear once, until an August day when Sammie came in the house from the garage, clutching an old bat in his hand. Dean tried to teach him how to play but it wasn't the same. His heart was too full of other things to concentrate on something so childish. At seven he had already taken up the mantle of a man.
He didn't remember where their old bats and baseballs disappeared to. Dad probably locked them up because he wanted his children to become practical. Archery and weaponry, salt and silver: they were the family sport now.
Dean rolled over on the motel bed; its spring shuddered and creaked and lumps in the mattress pressed into his side, but he was used to that. He watched Sam sleep, his brother's mouth frowning and his lips twitching with words he couldn't bring himself to say. Once or twice Sam would be so wracked with pain that he would lash out and kick the sheets away and shout something into the dark.
Mom, Jess, demons, murder, no, stay, don't.
Please.
Dean scrunched his eyes shut and pulled the pillow over his head, trying not to think about any of it. There was a time, once, when they played baseball, but that was a long time ago.