"Come on, dad," Dean's excited voice yelled. "Let's play catch some more."
"Later, kiddo," John replied, flopping down onto a garden lounger next to his wife. "You've tuckered me out. I gotta take a break."
Dean's face fell. "But Dad," the four-year old pouted.
§
"Getting puffed out by a kid, huh, big, bad, marine? Hope you'll have gotten your stamina back for later, " Mary Winchester winked suggestively.
"For tonight,t baby, I got big plans. That is," he huffed, "if little Sammy here doesn't decide he wants to ruin them."
§
Mary bent to give the cooing baby a nuzzling kiss. "Don't blame Sammy if you can't perform," she teased. "He's such a happy camper. Sleeps like a log all night."
"Can't perform? Woman, are you insulting my manhood?" John asked, feinting indignation, before leaning over to kiss her.
His wife drew back, grinning and John basked in this perfect summer's day. He'd never been so happy.
§
:
§
Steeped in the sensations of those wonderful moments, not long before his world had crashed and burned, John sighed at realisation that none of this perfection was real, even if the emotions it produced in him were.
He was in his heaven, he could relive all his best memories, yet the truth was, his sons were still on Earth, fighting, hurting and all alone.
Or maybe not. John had no way of recording time.
Days or centuries could have passed since he was here.
Perhaps Dean and Sam had been dead for years, or were in their heaven-or hell. No! His mind didn't want to go there, didn't want to imagine his kids going through an instant of the torture he'd been subjected to by Azazel and his cronies before escaping through the Devil's Gate
He felt sick at the very idea.
§
Reliving one's best memories couldn't erase his thoughts and fears, but it was highly addictive. He got to experience all that had been good in his life and forget the bad.
But he was getting to the point where he wondered if this gooey, sugary, drugged, heaven was all that better than the tortures of hell.
At least there you eventually forgot your humanity and became a demon.
John wondered if that, in the end, wasn't the better choice.
End