A VERY SUPERNATURAL CHRISTMAS STORY

Author's note: You know those days where you're alternating between going to bed in proper time or trying to finish a second chapter for the awesome people who have followed/favored/reviewed your story? No? Well, I'm having one of those days so here's a special Christmas treat for me to you. –Elisa.

Chapter 2.

_ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _

"Sam!" Dean shouted - his heart beating rapidly inside his chest as he fumbled with the passenger door with a shaky hand. "Come on. Come on."

Since the pile of snow in the ditch was covering the right side of the Impala the most, the door didn't budge at all so Dean quickly slid over to the driver side of the car with the shotgun in hand and pried the door open before rushing outside. The thirteen-year-old was immediately hit by a massive snow-filled wind that cut right through his clothes and had him shivering within seconds.

"Sammy!" Dean called and shielded his face from the piercing snowstorm by using the sleeve of his jacket.

The wind stole away his shouts but Dean continued to call for his little brother as he frantically moved through the snow with troubled steps. Dean's fingers were already starting to get numb when he remembered that he carried his gloves inside his jacket pockets, so he quickly reached into his pockets, took out the gloves and put them on before continuing his task of finding Sam. The older brother's heart then sank as he realized that he was also carrying Sam's gloves in his pockets since Dean knew that Sam always forgot to bring them with him but also always needed them in weather like this.

"Sam!" Dean shouted again, his throat clogging with fear of what could have happened to his baby brother when he spotted a trail on the snow-covered ground. It was almost covered up already but it was definitely there – a trail that revealed that someone had been dragged into the dark forest ahead of him.

"Not just someone." Dean thought with a mix of anger and worry. "Sam."

As fast as he could with the amount of snow that covered the landscape, Dean followed the trail in a desperate search for his brother but with the precision and patience as only the son of a hunter could contain. The trail continued around the edge of a frozen lake and Dean had just passed by some overturned trees when his ears picked up on a noise nearby that without a doubt wasn't the howling of the wind. The closer he got to the noise, the clearer it became to him what the noise was and Dean's heart started hammering away inside his chest. It was Sam - and it was Sam crying.

"Sam." Dean breathed out in relief as he spotted the younger brother sitting by the foot of a large tree next to the frozen lake. Dean scouted the area with wariness as he hurried towards Sam and he started running faster when Sam looked up and cried for him - the older brother falling to his knees in front of his brother when he finally reached him.

"Sam." Dean repeated and pulled Sam into a hug, squeezing his eyes shut and holding on just a little bit tighter as he felt the wetness on the younger boy's cheeks.

"D-Dean." Sam sniffled and the older brother pulled back to take a good look at the kid.

Despite the snowstorm and the darkness that was getting more and more profound by every minute, Dean was still able to see Sam's face and his forehead furrowed as he took in the blue tint on Sam's lips. He didn't miss the way Sam was violently shaking either.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Dean asked and tried to swallow his panic as Sam nodded. "Where?"

"M-my f-foot." Sam stuttered, pointed at the foot that the ghost had dragged him in and then whimpered as Dean took a hold of it.

"Easy." Dean soothed and carefully twisted Sam's foot a bit from side to side and up and down, wincing in sympathy with every pain-filled noise that escaped his brother's lips but relieved to know that Sam's foot at least wasn't broken. "Where is she, Sam? The ghost?"

"I d-don't know." Sam all but whispered and looked past Dean with a frightened look. "Just dragged me here and disappeared. Dean, what does she want?"

"It's hard to say, Sammy. But we better get away from here before she returns." Dean said and quickly pulled Sam's gloves over the younger boy's frozen fingers before he helped him up from the snowy ground. "Can you walk?"

Sam took a couple of trying steps, wincing and whimpering while doing so, but nodded bravely nonetheless.

"Slow steps." Dean said and held on to his brother as they headed back towards the Impala.

They hadn't taken more than a few steps, however, when the ghost suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed and the older brother let go of him long enough to push Sam behind him and fire a round of rock salt at the ghost that unfortunately disappeared before the shells could hit her.

"Sam, run!" Dean shouted as the ghost once again showed up but Sam hesitated behind him. "Run!"

Dean fired the shotgun again while Sam stumbled through the snow, falling to his knees a couple of times with a pain-filled sound before continuing to do as his big brother had told him to do. When the ghost suddenly reappeared in the middle of Sam's escape-route, the youngest Winchester brother let out a gasp in surprise and stared wide-eyed at the smirking ghost in front of him.

"You can run but you can't hide." The ghost sing-sang.

"Sam, drop!" Dean suddenly shouted nearby and Sam threw himself down in the snow and then covered his head as bits of rock salt rained down on him.

The younger brother felt strong arms pulling him back on his feet and he bit his lower lip hard as pain once again shot through his hurt foot.

"Sam, come on. Come on." Dean said before grabbing Sam's gloved hand and dragging him with him out on the frozen lake - hoping that they would get back to the Impala sooner by using the shortcut.

The snowstorm was still raging intensely which made it difficult for the brothers to move ahead and see anything at all, and both boys were shivering badly.

"J-just a little longer, Sammy." Dean encouraged through clattering teeth, wincing in sympathy with every painful step his little brother took. "The Impala isn't far away and Dad will be waiting for us."

At least that was what Dean hoped he would. Truth to be told; he didn't know whether their father would be waiting for them or not. Dean could only hope that John Winchester had found out a way to get rid of the ghost or that he at least had noticed that his boys were missing by now but no matter what, Dean would say what his brother needed to hear.

The Winchester brothers reached the middle of the frozen lake and Dean noticed with sudden worry how the ice seemed thinner at this part of the lake. Sam seemed to notice it too and had just opened his mouth to say something to his older brother, when the air around them suddenly got colder than it already was. The slight change in the temperature was enough warning for Dean to raise the shotgun which made him prepared when the ghost turned up in front of them once more. The ghost made a move forwards but Dean was quicker and fired a round of rock salt that pierced through the ghost and forced her to disappear.

"Take that, you son of a bitch!" Dean triumphed but the glee was short as the rock salt bullets that had gone right through the ghost also happened to have hit the ice and cracked the surface.

"Dean, the ice.." Sam said and held on to the sleeve of Dean's jacket.

"I see it." Dean said, put a hand on Sam's chest and backed them both up a little with careful steps. "We need to get closer to the edge of the lake where the ice is thicker."

The boys didn't get a chance to do so however, before the ghost reappeared and knocked the shotgun out of Dean's hands before he had the time to even raise the weapon. The shotgun swirled across the ice and Sam made a run for it but before he could reach it, the ice made a cracking sound and suddenly disappeared underneath the younger brother's feet.

"No!" Dean shouted, wide-eyed and horrified, as Sam's lower body went through the ice – the nine-year-old's head smacking into the ice in the process with a sickening thud.

At the same time as the ghost all of a sudden went up in flames, Dean threw himself down on his stomach and managed to grab Sam's hand before the younger boy could be pulled further down in the ice-cold water. Sam's eyes were closed and his forehead bloody as Dean used all of his strength to pull Sam back up on the surface of the ice and into his big brother's waiting arms.

"Sam! Sam!" Dean called in panic and shook Sam's shoulders.

The older brother then let out a sigh of relief as Sam let out a soft groan and slowly blinked his eyes open.

"Geez kiddo, what are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?" Dean asked and wiped some blood off Sam's forehead with his sleeve.

"M-m-my h-h-head h-h-hurts." Sam stuttered out with clattering teeth – his entire body shuddering incontrollable.

"I know, Sam." Dean said in a soft voice and found the goose egg formed bump on Sam's forehead, before his brows furrowed as he felt another bump just at the beginning of Sam's hairline. The older brother then remembered that Sam had also hit his head when the Impala had crashed into the ditch and the realization spiked Dean's worry even more.

"Come on, we gotta get you back to the car." Dean said and helped Sam up from the ice.

Dean wasn't surprised when Sam swayed and his knees buckled, but the older brother hoisted the kid up against his side and carried the bigger part of Sam's weight as they started walking again. Dean was glad that only the lower half of Sam's body had gone through the ice but he also knew that Sam was still beyond cold and that he had to get his brother warmed up before Sam took a turn for the worse.

The snowstorm had luckily ceased off a bit which made it easier for the brothers to see where they were heading. They made it all the way across the lake and back on firm ground before Sam wasn't able to move his legs anymore or hold himself vertical at all. Dean luckily caught Sam around the midsection before he could go down and the older brother dragged Sam with him to some overturned trees that could provide them with just a little bit of lee from the wind. Dean sat down on the ground and pulled Sam back against him before wrapping his arms around the younger boy.

"You stay awake." Dean ordered as Sam's eyelids began to droop. "Dad will find us soon and then we're going to Bobby's place where there's always warm. Maybe he'll even have hot cocoa for us, huh Sammy?"

"A-a-and w-w-warm b-beds." Sam added which made Dean smile wryly.

"That too." Dean said. "And I'll even let you have the good one. Just stay awake, alright?"

Sam nodded although his eyelids kept drooping.

"You remember that Christmas book Bobby had that you loved so much?" Dean asked to keep Sam's attention. "What was it called? 'A Christmas Song'?"

"A C-Christmas C-C-Carol." Sam stammered out and Dean nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that's it. Tell me about it, Sam." Dean said.

"Y-you a-a-already k-know i-it." Sam said.

"Tell me anyway." Dean said while rubbing Sam's chest in a desperate attempt to provide the kid with a little bit of warmth - especially since Sam had suddenly stopped shuddering of coldness and Dean knew that it wasn't a very good sign.

Sam started telling Dean about the cold-hearted creditor named Ebenezer Scrooge who was visited by three spirits that showed him the past, present and what had yet to come.

"The g-ghost of C-Christmas Present tells Scrooge t-that unless t-the future is changed, then Tiny Tim will die." Sam tells Dean. "I always l-liked Tiny Tim, Dean."

"Then what?" Dean asked, swallowing hard against the lump that had started to form in his throat as Tiny Tim all of a sudden reminded him a little too much of his good-hearted little brother who was struggling very hard to keep his eyes open by now.

"I.. I don't remember." Sam mumbled and Dean's concern spiked tremendously.

"Yes you do! Then the last spirit shows up – the one showing Scrooge the future." Dean encouraged but Sam remained silent. "Sammy? Sam!"

Dean shook his younger brother a bit but Sam didn't respond. His head just lolled against Dean's chest and his eyes stayed closed. The older brother let out a sound that most of all sounded like a whimper and bit his lower lip while tilting his head back. As he looked up at the black sky, watching big white snowflakes slowly circle down above him, a tear started rolling down the thirteen-year-old's cheek. Dean sniffled, dried off his running nose with the back of his gloved hand before he hugged Sam even tighter to his chest.

"Sammy, please." Dean begged. "Please wake up."

But Sam didn't wake up. Dean had known he wouldn't the second his nine year old little brother had closed his eyes and not opened them back up when he'd spoken his name, and fear and panic started consuming the older brother's heart.

This was not how Dean had wanted Christmas Eve to turn out – this was not how he'd wanted Sam to spend Christmas Eve. Dean had wanted this year to be special to make up for the Christmas they'd had the year before where Sam had found out what their dad really did for a living, that the world was full of supernatural beings and how their mom had died. Sam had been overwhelmed and scared and – to top it all – their father hadn't even been around that particular Christmas. Dean could feel the golden pendant, which Sam had given him the previous Christmas, tucked away underneath his jacket and he let out a sob as he realized that his little brother might never witness another Christmas morning.

"Sammy.. Please.." Dean cried and pressed his cheek against Sam's much colder one – the floppy brown hair sticking out from Sam's beanie and tickling his skin.

It wasn't fear of what his father might do or say to him if Sam didn't wake up again that scared Dean the most. It wasn't the guilt of not having been able to protect his brother the way he should have that filled Dean's heart either. It was the dread of no longer being woken up by a little brother with a dimpled smile, that was threatening to consume him; to no longer being able to hear Sam laugh, to see him smile and hear him go on and on about some stupid school assignment or random knowledge that Dean couldn't care less about, to no longer seeing the bitch-face or the redness of Sam's cheeks when he got embarrassed. It was the thought of losing his little brother, whose first word had been his big brother's name, that scared Dean more than anything and it was too much for his thirteen-year-old heart to bear.

"Sam! Dean!" A familiar voice all of a sudden pierced through the forest. "Sam! Dean!"

"Over here!" Dean called back and shielded his eyes behind Sam's beanie-covered head as a beam of a flashlight hit his face a few moments later.

"John! I found them!" Bobby Singer shouted before he quickly closed the gap between him and the boys and let out a sigh of relief as Dean stared back at him. "What have you idjits been up to this time around?"

"Bobby, Sam is hurt." Dean said while he still hugged Sam tightly to his chest. "And he won't wake up."

Bobby's expression turned worried as he crouched down next to the boys and put two fingers against Sam's neck to check the younger boy's pulse, and it was then John Winchester suddenly came crashing through the trees. One look at the sight in front of him was all the oldest Winchester needed to understand the seriousness of the situation, and he pushed past Bobby and picked Sam up in one quick motion.

"Take Dean." John said to Bobby before he all but sprinted back in the direction he came from.

"Come on, Dean." Bobby said, extended a hand to the older Winchester brother before yanking him to his feet.

Bobby then pried off his jacket and wrapped it around Dean's shoulders before he started guiding the still sniffling kid out of the forest.

_ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _

TBC..

I would love to hear some feedback. Thanks for reading! ;)

-Elisa.