So it's been a long while since I updated this, oops! But seeing as I don't have any long-term stories to be working on at the moment, I have some more time for little oneshots like this. I hope you guys jump back on board ;) of course, I have a few ideas, but not many, so if anyone wants to see any happy moments, please please leave a review or shoot me a PM! For those of you that left some *over a year ago, wow, it's been a while*, I have them all saved on a doc and will be getting to them, I promise.

This specific story is partially inspired by my recent Ghostbusters rewatch and partially from a tumblr post I saw floating around a long time ago that made me smile. Hope you all enjoy!

Still don't own anything ghost/demonbuster related.

Dean saw Ghostbusters for the first time when he was seven years old. He was watching cartoons late at night, since sometimes he had trouble sleeping when John was out, when the station mentioned a special showing of the movie. Dean, knowing what his father did for 'work', recognized the word 'ghost' and figured that maybe it would be a movie about his dad.

He wasn't entirely wrong, and even though the movie was probably a little old for him and he only really saw about half of it, he enjoyed it.

When John got back the next day, the first question out of Dean's mouth was "did you fight a ghost, dad?" He made sure to ask it when Sammy was taking his nap, of course, so he couldn't overhear.

John had a conversation with Dean a few months prior that Sam wasn't supposed to know about his work, not until he was bigger and older, so he didn't get scared. Dean, his protective streak already thick as he was tall, had agreed.

The older man looked up from his journal to his son, sitting across from him with a cheese sandwich in both hands, feet swinging from the chair. "No, it wasn't a ghost," he answered simply and went back to writing.

"Do ya fight ghosts ever?"

"Sometimes." John paused in his writing to look back up. "Why do you ask?" His oldest was smart as a whip, even at seven years old, and he'd probably put the rest of the first graders to shame if John could get him enrolled in a school in time in the new district.

"Sooooo," Dean dragged out the word, "does that make you a ghostbuster?" He said it with such an innocent, inquisitive look on his face that it took John a moment to catch up and wonder how the hell Dean knew what a ghostbuster was.

"Were you up late watching movies when you should've been sleeping?" John's serious tone counteracted Dean's and his eyes immediately dropped down to his plate. Smart and obedient, but still on the side of innocent rule breaking.

"Sammy was asleep and I heard something outside and couldn't sleep and I had it on real quiet, I promise." John was sure of that, at least, but what he was more worried about was his oldest son developing nightmares. He did his best to keep most of the job away from the kid, at least for now, and definitely didn't need a movie of all things to start undoing it.

Though, he had left them alone in a motel with a television and no way to lock channels, so the moment of bad parenting was probably on him. He eventually sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Didn't scare you, did it?"

Dean immediately shook his head. "No…there was a giant marshmallow in it, he's not scary. He's not real, right?" The light was back in his eyes at the idea of evading punishment or disappointment and instead just talking about the movie.

Leave it to Dean to forget about the green fat ghost or the living gargoyles and instead go for the marshmallow man. Maybe he'd missed some of the movie, John could only hope. "No, Dean, he's not real," John assured with a slight smile.

Dean took a bite of his sandwich and the conversation halted for a second. Just when John thought he could finish the entry, his oldest piped up again. "So are you one?"

"One what?"

"A ghostbuster!"

If John had a camera, he would've taken a picture of the kid's face, it was perfect. Grinning, curious, just a bit devious, everything that made up a young child. And for a moment, the images of bloody werewolf gashes on earlier victims faded from his mind and he smiled at his son. "I guess I am, then."

They'd promised to keep it a secret, of course, but for the next few days Dean looked at John like he was a next-level hero, and the hunter didn't see anything wrong with that.

It became their little inside joke, if Dean even understood what those were. Sam was too young to understand the little references back and forth, but Dean enjoyed them immensely. John, too, found himself not minding them.

"Now, who do you call if something happens?"

Dean knew completely well that it was John first, Bobby second, but his first answer from then on was always an enthusiastic "Ghostbusters!"

John would catch him humming the theme song wherever they went, and occasionally Sam would try to join in with the humming, since he didn't know the words.

More than once they'd be in the car in the middle of a long drive, nothing but night sky and open pavement stretched out in front of them. Sam would be curled up next to Dean, who had his arm wrapped around his little brother.

John would glance at them every so often in the rearview mirror and find Dean's eyes looking back at him.

"Hey, dad?" would eventually break the silence.

"Hm?"

"Are you afraid of ghosts?" Dean's face would already be morphing into a smile before he asked the question.

And John, too, would smile, the stress and tiredness of the job washing off him just for a moment. He'd catch Dean's glance in the mirror and reply, possibly in a bit of a stage voice, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts."