There are many ways to die.

However, the fact that a ten year old knew this, and even had come to terms with it, was unusual. It was the general thought that children were frightened of death; the inevitable end. Such a young teenager aware and welcomed of the fact of dying was therefore assumed strange.

Then again, the Winchesters weren't usual people.

When all a ten year old boy had in life was his brother, father and car, it was no wonder the child had lots of time to think. When all a ten year old boy did with his free time was come close to death, it was no wonder that the child welcomed the end.

It wasn't just the way he welcomed it. It was the way he knew about it, thought about it, and even planned it.

The young boy often was alone in motel rooms, watching over his brother, just a simple four years younger than the first child. A ten year old left to watch over a six year old was also unusual, but it didn't occur to either the children or the adult responsible for them to change it.

It was just their life. As were the constant death threats.

When either child came close to the end, he was encased in love and pleaded to pull through. And, in each case, he did. Both children, by the age of ten and six, were aware of their roles in life: disposable.

They were hunters. That was all.

They could die the next day while trying to save more lives than lost. They could be killed so easily, with just one swipe of a lethal weapon. The cause didn't even have to be supernatural. A naturally infected cut would kill just fine.

Was it any wonder that the child welcomed death?

No, it wasn't. In fact, the young boy never stopped welcoming death. From the moment he learnt about his mother's own, and how it was partly his fault - because it was partly everyone's - he stopped caring about life.

He had his reasons to carry on living. Suicide never crossed the boy's mind.

He had his brother to watch over and his father to keep with him, who would so often drift off, drunk and loud until he passed out on the sofa, weeping for his lost wife and their doomed boys.

The ten year old would wait until the adult slept and then take charge.

He would drape a thin blanket over the sleeping form, make sure he would recover by morning, and then crawl into bed with his little brother, keeping the younger boy warm during the cold winter months, where their father never thought to buy them warmer clothes.

And the boys never complained.

They had learnt so young that there were worse things in life, worse things to live for, worse things to die for. So, in the end, it was no surprise that the ten year old, small for his age, welcomed death.

Only for himself, of course. His brother must survive.

The child would think through the methods of dying in his mind at night, lying next to his little brother. He knew about infections, poisons and wounds. He knew about the ferociousness of the creatures that prowl, the ones they hunted.

He never thought about the worse way to die.

It was only years and years later, when his father was already gone and the spark of life that had been extinguished when he was ten years old had just fluttered back into life. When he had started working with his little brother again, the one he would die for.

And that was the worst way to die.

Not his death, but his brother's. The worst way to die was to kneel in the mud; it was to clutch his brother's limp body in his arms, knowing he was already lost. It was to cry into his little brother's hair, fresh from the rain.

There are many ways to die.

And, as Dean Winchester knelt there in the mud and the rain, clutching Sam's broken body to him, he realised he had been wrong when he was ten years old. No, the worse way to die wasn't to die.

The worst way to die was when his body ignored it and carried on living.