Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.

A/N: This story was inspired by a childhood memory of mine, which I remembered last night during a thunderstorm so bad that the tornado sirens were going off and I had to hole up in the bathroom with my dogs until the all-clear came through. The power was out for a few hours, and it was lucky the computer had a backlight because everything else in my house was being lit by a few candles. ;)

BBBBBRRROOOOOOOMMMM… KAAKRAAAACK! BRRROOOOMM…

Dean Winchester sighed as he looked peered between the slats of their motel room's ratty blinds, not particularly happy to see that the dark gray clouds that had been hanging overhead all day had finally decided to start roaring and dumping rain all over the place. The parking lot just outside their room, which earlier had looked as dry and cracked as the Sahara Desert he'd seen pictures of in school, was now completely covered in a pool of water, obscuring the faded, sloppily-painted parking lines and making the few parked cars look like ducks out for a swim in a small pond.

He hoped Dad was okay out there. The hunter had left early that evening to go investigate a potential case, and possibly kill the creature responsible, but five hours later he still hadn't returned. It always made Dean anxious when he was left alone with his little brother for long periods of time, because even though he loved Sam more than life, he also knew there were some things he just wasn't strong enough to protect them from yet. Without the oldest Winchester, he always felt vulnerable, and it made it hard for him to sleep until he knew for sure that their dad was okay and would definitely be coming back.

If he was being honest, Dean also wasn't a big fan of thunderstorms. Not because of the thunder itself, though; at nine years old, he'd already experienced too many horrifying, unnatural things to be scared of a few clouds throwing a temper tantrum. The same, however, could not be said for his little brother Sammy, who had only turned five two weeks ago and was still blissfully unaware that there was anything in the world scarier than loud noises and flashes of light coming from the night sky.

As if on cue, another flash of lightning lit up the room, casting everything in eerie, threatening-looking shadows moments before a clap of thunder boomed in its wake, the sound so loud it made the thin walls vibrate violently. In an instant Sam was wide awake, his eyes open wide as tears of fear immediately began to pool in them.

"Dean!" he cried, shutting his eyes tight and clapping his hands over his ears. "Dean, where are you?!"

"Right here, Sammy, I'm right here," Dean answered hurriedly, turning on the bedside table lamp and climbing over to sit beside his brother as quickly as his legs would carry him. "Come here, Sam." He opened his arms and Sam dove into them, burying his face in his big brother's chest and whimpering quietly as he shook like a leaf in the wind. Dean hugged him tight, rubbing his back and rocking them slowly side to side in an attempt to calm his terrified brother.

"Shh, Sammy," he whispered soothingly, patting Sam's back when the younger boy began to give himself the hiccups from breathing so fast. "It's okay, buddy. You're okay."

But Sam didn't calm down – in fact, he only seemed to panic more. And when the power suddenly shut off and another clap of thunder rattled through the room, it was all Dean could do to keep Sam in his arms, because the kid's instincts seemed to be telling him he should bolt away as fast as he could and hide somewhere.

"'s gonna get us!" he wailed, before hiding his face in his older brother's shirt again and crying harder than ever.

"Aww, Sammy," Dean whispered, carding his fingers through his little brother's hair and trying desperately to think of a way to ease some of the terror he was feeling. "It's nothing that can hurt us, okay? It's just a little loud." It was useless trying to convince Sam of that, though. He'd already explained to his little brother time and time again that thunder was just noise, that it couldn't hurt him (and so had John, although not so patiently as Dean.) No amount of reassurance had helped; being in a thunderstorm scared Sam so badly that all sense of rationality completely fled him until it was over.

But as another flash of lightning illuminated the dark room, warping the dark shapes of the furniture into strange, twisting caricatures, an idea finally struck him and he grinned, coaxing Sam to loosen his stranglehold around him a little so he could move toward the edge of the bed.

"Just wait here Sammy, okay?" he reassured the younger boy when he started to get up to trail after his brother. "I'm only going to get some matches from the suitcase so we can see."

Sam obeyed, pulling the covers up close to his chin with a quiet whimper, and Dean smiled to himself as he made his way to his father's spare bag and shuffled through it in search of a matchbook and some small candles – always a necessity for any hunter to keep handy. Once he felt his hands wrap around the rough cardboard package and two of the short wax cylinders, he grinned, zipping up the bag and making his way back over to the table beside Sam's bed.

If this wasn't enough to distract Sammy from his fears, then nothing would be.

He set the two little candles in the ashtray on the table (finally, a good use for one of those things!) and struck a match, lighting the wicks quickly and then carefully blowing out the match and setting it down, hot end first, in the ashtray beside them. Immediately the two walls closest to them were cast in a soft, warm glow, the flames of the candles sputtering and dancing before they grew hot enough to burn steady.

"Dean? What are you doing?" Sam asked, tearful eyes peeking out just above the edge of the covers so he could stare in fascination at the tiny lights.

"I'm gonna show you something cool," Dean answered, sitting down on the bed beside Sam with his feet dangling to the floor. As Sam watched silently, Dean lifted up his hands in front of him, turning them around so that his palms faced toward his body, and then interlaced them at the thumbs, wrists touching together. On the far wall, the shadows cast in the candlelight took the shape of a bird, and Dean slowly bent his fingers forward and back to make it look like the wings were flapping.

"Wow!" Sam breathed, watching in awe as his brother made the bird twist and turn, giving short little whistles from his pursed lips so that it sounded like a bluebird's chirping. Dean smiled, separating his thumbs and curling them in toward his palms while his wrists parted slightly. It took Sam a moment to see what he was making, but when Dean started wiggling his fingers like eight little legs, he wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue.

"A spider, Dean? Yuck!"

"What?" Dean looked at the wall and frowned. "That's not a spider, it's a crab!"

"Nuh-uh. It looks like a spider," Sam countered, giggling as Dean moved his hands again to make the creature's body bigger and its legs shorter by comparison.

"There, are you happy now, Picasso?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and a crooked grin.

"Uh-huh," Sam answered, lifting his own hands up and furrowing his brow in concentration as he tried to copy Dean's hand position with his own. Once he had, he smiled triumphantly up at his brother, wiggling his fingers to make it look like the crab was walking.

Dean looked at the crooked little crab on the wall and gave the thumbs-up. "Good job, Sammy!"

Before Sam could respond, another clap of thunder shook the walls, and a fearful shiver ran from his head to his toes. Afraid he was going to lose Sam's attention again, Dean hurriedly rearranged his hands, putting his palms together and turning his hands toward the right as he bent his fingers to look like ears and a long, pointed nose. "Look, Sammy. You know what this is?"

Sam squinted at it a moment, his five-year-old brain working hard to make the shadowy shape line up with the few animal names he knew, and then his face lit up as he answered, "It's a puppy!"

"Woof!" Dean answered, giving a few more short barks as he made the shadow's mouth move and causing Sam to laugh in delight. It was no secret that the kid was crazy about dogs, which was sure to cause trouble with Dad down the road since he had a strict "No Pets" policy. Right now, though, it was nothing but helpful – and, if he was being honest with himself, pretty darn adorable too.

Dean made shadow puppets on the wall for almost a half hour, ranging from easy ones like a snail and a cat to harder ones like a bull and a bunny. He even gave Sam shadow moose antlers, which his little brother seemed to find absolutely hilarious for some unexplainable reason. And best of all, it seemed to work perfectly in distracting his attention from the raging storm outside.

Finally, though, he could see Sammy's eyelids starting to droop, and more than one yawn being stifled behind his tiny hands. Without a word, he held back the covers and gave Sam's chest a gentle push, and the younger boy slithered in between the blankets without a single protest, yawning and blinking blearily as Dean slid in on the other side of the bed.

"Dean?" he whispered, nuzzling into his brother's chest as the older boy scooted closer and wrapped his arms around him.

"Mm?"

"Where'd you learn to make shadows like that?"

Dean hesitated a moment, and when he answered his voice was quiet and very level. "It's something Mom showed me how to do once, when you were still in her belly. Dad was still at work that night, kind of like he is now, so it was just the two of us, and a storm knocked out the power and scared me." His voice got a little softer as he talked about Mom; all these years later it still hurt to talk about her, even to Sammy. "Playing with the shadows made me feel better, and after that night I wasn't scared of storms anymore."

Sam sighed sleepily, and when he spoke again, his words were so quiet Dean could hardly hear them.

"I wish I could remember Mom…"

Dean stiffened, feeling like someone had just punched a hole in his chest, and hugged Sam tighter, rubbing his back gently since he couldn't seem to make any words come out. Once he was sure Sammy was really asleep, he closed his own eyes and whispered, "I wish you could too, Sammy. You would've loved her…" Within minutes, he had fallen asleep too, dreaming of warm hugs and making shadow puppets with his mother while a still unborn Sammy kicked and rolled inside her in response to their shared laughter.

When John finally came home, expecting to see Sam beside himself with fear after being without power in the middle of a storm, he was surprised to see his two boys out like a light, Dean's arms still wrapped around Sammy so he could protect him even as they slept. He strode over to the side of the bed and kissed them both goodnight. And as he climbed into his own bed, he blew out the candles in the ashtray and wondered, with no small amount of remorse, just how many more milestones his boys might pass without him there to see it.