The Years by the Stars

By: M14Mouse

Summary: …They would stare at the stars for hours and not say a word. Tag to 5.22: Swan Song

Disclaimer: Don't own them.

When they were little, they made star watching into some type of game.

Sometimes, it was making weird ass dot to dot pictures in your head. It wasn't as good as figuring out what pictures the clouds made but they came up with some wacky pictures. To this day, his favorite was the moose riding a unicorn

"It is a bus."

"It doesn't look like a bus, Dean."

"It is a bus, Sam. Just take my word for it."

"It looks like a moose on a unicorn."

"…Dude, I don't see it."

"See, Dean? There are the antlers and the nose…"

Totally Sam, right? That memory always made him laugh.

Sometimes, they would make up the names to the stars. But Sammy being the geek he is, he started to know the actual names of the stars. That kind of killed the game.

"Canopus."

"What?"

"It is the second brightest star in the sky."

"How do you know these things?"

"It was in a book."

"Anything else did that book tell you?

"Sirius, Betelguese, Rigel, and Procyon make up Orion's Belt."

"It would save them trouble if they just called them the four musketeers."

That earned him an eye roll. It was always fun to see if he could get his brother's panties all in a twist.

As time passed, they dropped the games and just started talking. Nothing heavy. Just what popped in their heads. Girls…Friends…School…or him skipping school…the strange people that they met on the road like that guy selling hangers in Missouri or the waitress in Georgia.

"She was totally hitting on you, Dean."

"Nah…It was you, Sammy."

"How did you figure that?"

"She was staring at you."

"Dude, she kept giving you that creepy smile."

"Okay, that was kind of creepy."

"Maybe, she was trying to hit on dad. You know impress him and stuff."

"That is just nasty. I didn't want the mental image of whom dad slept with."

He laughed bitterly as he remembered Sam making a bitchface.

He sighed softly as his laughter die down. He couldn't remember when they just stop talking and it turned into silence. Maybe, it was before Stanford…or maybe it was after. It just sort of happened. It wasn't uncomfortable silence even when they were pissed off at each other. It was relaxing…peaceful.

It was just them.

Even now, he would catch himself looking up. Even with all of the city lights, he could see each star and every star in his head. He could smell the grass and the trees. When he looked down and over, he expected to see Sam.

That made his heart break just a little tiny more when he didn't.

Because he knew his little brother wasn't seeing stars. He was in a fucking hell with Lucifer.

That thought alone almost broke him. He didn't break because he made a promise. It was a promise that was slowly killing him.

"Which would you rather have: peace or freedom?"

He didn't want either.

He just wanted his brother back.

End.

A/N: The episode nearly broke me. I cried like a little girl. I love writers' different ideas on what Sam could be and how he came back. Personally, I am not going to touch that with a ten foot pole. I had to do something with the episode. The line and the moment that they are staring at the stars and aren't saying a word touched me. I had to do something with it. Sooo…Ta-Da? Read and Review if You Wish