Author's Note: I was thinking about how depressing Supernatural is, and then I was walking past this field and I saw these two kids playing soccer. For some reason I immediately pictured them as Sam and Dean, and thus this story was created.
It takes place directly after Season 3. Dean has just died. Please enjoy! Or, cry. Whichever.
Sam has this memory. It's this one moment of crystal clear perfection and whenever he literally cannot stand the reality of his life for one second longer, he snaps his eyes shut and he lets the memory come to him.
It's his tenth birthday, and Dean wakes him up by throwing a pillow at his face some time in the dark hours of the morning. Their dad is nowhere. Off on a hunt. Sam barely feels any disappointment about this. It doesn't matter anymore. John's absence had stopped cutting Sam to the quick a long time ago. Dean is smiling and the pendant on his necklace is swinging in cadence with his steps as he tells Sam to get up, get dressed, let's go, we're going to be late!
Sam just shrugs and does as his brother asks him to, and before he knows it they've marched out of the motel and down through some old weeded garden space, and then into a sparse collection of trees. Sam cannot remember what city they're in at the moment, although he does believe they're in Oregon somewhere. It doesn't matter much. Dean pushes aside some tree branches and there is a clearing.
They watch the sunrise over the mountain tops and Dean pulls a shiny new soccer ball out of his duffel bag. They play pass. They don't talk about proper weapons handling or any of their cases. They wrestle in the grass because it's fun, not because it's training, and after a few hours have passed, Dean pulls a square wrapped in newspaper out of the duffel.
"You didn't have to get me anything."
Dean just shrugs, and Sam rips the newspaper off. It's a notebook.
"You're always scribbling on whatever scraps of paper you can get your hands on. I've resigned myself to having a nerd for a little brother, so I thought you might as well have a proper place to write."
Sam smiles and actually dares to give his brother a hug. They don't do that much anymore. Dean is too cool for it. But this morning he wraps his arms around his little brother and they are at peace.
Dean's entire body is torn to shreds. It takes a moment for Sam to un-stick the necklace from one of the bloody grooves in his brother's neck and remove it from the corpse. He closes his eyes and smells forest grass and sun-rays and crisp air and the leather of a new notebook. He grips the bloody pendant in his hands so hard that the skin on the palm of his hands begin to bruise.
"We should bury him now," he finally says to no one. He'll have to remember to repeat himself when Bobby re-enters the room.
He wonders whatever happened to that soccer ball, and he wishes for death.
Author's Note: Please drop a review! I'd love your feedback.