I've gotta say, I'm actually kinda surprised that this one was reviewed/favorited. Thanks, guys! And to make your holidays bright, here's chapter 2!
Sam found it incredibly difficult to stop staring at his brother. It had been a while since he'd seen the man- sorry, boy- cook.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked, trying to dispel the awkward atmosphere that had settled in the kitchen since they'd entered it.

Dean turned around, smirking that unmistakable smirk of his, proving without a doubt that he was who he said he was. "Dude, it's, like, seven. And Christmas."

Sam nodded. "Right. Sorry. Stupid question."

Dean turned back to the stove. "Makes sense coming from a stupid person, though," he quipped.

"Takes one to know one," Sam shot back, leaning back into the hard wooden chair and gazing around the kitchen. He could barely remember this house, but that made sense, seeing as how his childhood had been made up of a flurry of towns, homes, and motels. It was nice, though, he had to admit that. Not perfect, but nice.

He went back to watching Dean's back, smiling as the scent of fresh food filled the room. It had been a long time since his brother had actually made a meal for him, actually taken the time to do more than just visit the nearest drive-through. He hadn't realized it, but he'd kind of missed it.

"You get a lot of time for Holiday break?" he asked.

"Well, it's not exactly Holiday break," Dean corrected him, flipping the pancakes, "more like Christmas break. No one calls it Holiday."

Sammy smirked. Give it time, he thought.

"Besides," Dean added, "every day's a break. I dropped out, remember?"

Sam felt his eyes bug. "How old did you say you were?"

"Sixteen. But you know I stopped going. Kind of hard to miss big brother dropping you off everyday." He walked to a cabinet and grabbed a couple of plates. "You never answered my question. One or two?"

"Uh, two." Sam said, his mind going numb with shock. It was a mild shock, sure, but he hadn't thought about his brother's level of education in a long time, and to be confronted with it again so suddenly…

Dean set a plate piled with pancakes in front of him. "There's no way you're only gonna eat two," the now-younger man explained, smiling as he took his own seat, "I know you."

"You dropped out," Sam blurted, stopping Dean before his first forkful of breakfast could reach his mouth. "I knew that. I just… you're so young."

"Dude," Dean said, his voice high with false abashment, "sixteen. I'm not a kid anymore."

"Yeah, but… you're never gonna graduate."

"Kinda parta the dropping out deal, yeah."

"What if you want to go to college?"

Dean started to laugh, spraying small chunks of pancake all over the table and his too-stunned-to-notice brother. "Seriously? What could college possibly do for me? Until they instate Ghost Hunting 101 as a class, I'm fine right here, thanks."

"But you could make friends," Sam said, barely registering the way his brother's grip fell suddenly slack, nearly dropping his fork to his plate, "you could get a girlfriend. You could get an education and a real job and be normal and-"

"Aw, come on," Dean scoffed, "don't tell me you still haven't outgrown that?"

"What?"

"That stupid obsession with being normal. It's overrated, you know."

"But it's not. Dean, I went to college and I made friends and I got a girlfriend. I got a full-ride to Stanford. It was-"

"You left?" Dean asked, his voice holding that same note of longing and desperation it had when he'd been questioning Sam in the bedroom.

"Well," Sammy said quickly, realizing he'd made a mistake, "I… dad kicked me out. I had to go."

"You…" Dean looked up at him with hurt, tired eyes, "you got what you wanted?"

"Yeah," Sam smiled, "I guess I did. For a while. Then it kinda fell apart. But I was happy."

"Did… why'd you wake up here?"

"I dunno. Went to sleep in a motel room with you. Guess we should try to find that out, huh?"

"College boy's got no clue?" Dean asked playfully, smirk back in place.

"Not really."

"See, that education's not good for anything, anyway. Nothing useful, at least."

"That's not true."

"Really? What could I possibly find at college?"

"Well, I found a girlfriend and real friends. You could find that. It's not too late for you to go back, get a high school diploma-"

"Be all I can be?" Dean interrupted.

"Instead of an army of one," Sam nodded.

"Sorry. Not going back."

"Why?"

Dean blinked, then looked down at his half-eaten pancake as if it were the most interesting thing he'd seen in a long while. "Why what?"

"Why'd you drop out?"

"You don't wanna know."

"No," Sam insisted, "I do. You never really told me before."

Dean looked back up at him, his eyes shining. He bit his lip, glancing around the small kitchen. It looked almost like he was internally debating something, trying to decide what to do. "You want the truth, or what I told dad?"

Sam felt his eyes go unnaturally wide for the second time that morning. "You lied to dad?"

"Kinda. It's not a big deal, though. Doesn't matter."

"What'd you tell him?"

Dean shrugged. "Just that I wanted to leave school to go hunting with him more, to really learn the ropes of the family business."

The older man nodded. The story sounded familiar. "Well, what really made you drop out, then?"

"Not so much a what," Dean said reluctantly, "and more of a who." He took a deep breath. "It was you."