"I was eight years old, Nate – how was I supposed to know it would do that?"
Chris's indignant comment only made his brother, and everyone else round the table, laugh harder. Nathan was the first to eventually manage to get himself under control and he shook his head, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Oh, man – I can still see the look on your face. It really was priceless."
"Now, Nathan, stop tormenting your brother. I'm sure there's plenty of stories he could tell if he had a mind to." said Jean, trying not to look as amused as everyone else.
"You know, Mom, that's a very good point." said Chris, an evil glint appearing in his eye.
"Actually, what about you guys? I'm sure you must have plenty of embarrassing stories you wouldn't mind sharing." said Nathan, hastily, looking across the table to Dean and Sam.
Dean glanced sideways at Sam with a grin and Sam held his hand up.
"Ok, you can quit giving me that look, Dean. You might wanna remember I got just as many stories about you as you have about me."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Sammy – I had a couple of extra years to store them up, remember?"
"Am I going to have to remind you as well to be nice to your brother?" said Jean, warningly, and Dean looked innocent.
"Of course not. I'm always nice to him, right Sam?"
"Define 'nice'?"
Chris and Nathan laughed at that.
"Now this definitely sounds familiar. Seriously though, there must be something that's not too bad."
Dean looked thoughtful.
"Well, there was the hair gel incident." he said and Chris leaned forward interestedly.
"Oh yes?"
Sam frowned then his eyes widened.
"Oh come on, you can't still be going on about that – I was twelve, Dean."
"Yeah, and it was six stitches, Sam." Dean replied, smirking as Sam blushed a little.
"Ok, now you definitely have to tell us – six stitches?" said Nathan and Dean nodded.
"Yep. See we were living in Ohio in this rented house for a while and the bedroom Sam and I were sharing was on the ground floor. So one day Sam was being all geeky and doing his homework,"
Dean moved out of the way as Sam attempted to knee him for the 'geeky' comment, carrying on without even breaking his flow.
"And I was outside, like most normal teenagers would have been. Anyway, I was messing around with this old baseball we had, throwing it against the wall and catching it again. I didn't really pay much attention to which wall I was using but it was actually the one that backed onto the bedroom. So Sam here comes storming out after about half an hour and tells me to quit throwing the ball cos it's driving him crazy and he's trying to concentrate."
"So what did you do?" asked Nathan, even though he had a fair idea what the answer would be, and Dean grinned.
"I carried on. Next thing I know the window opens and something comes flying out. I didn't even have time to duck, it totally took me by surprise. This thing hits me right in the head, just about my left eyebrow, and suddenly I'm on the floor with blood pouring everywhere."
"Oh it was not everywhere." said Sam, feeling himself getting redder. "Besides, if you'd ducked then it wouldn't have hit you."
Dean raised his eyebrows.
"Of course, clearly it was my fault for not expecting to see something coming at my head at eighty miles an hour."
Chris laughed.
"So what was it?"
"It was a pot of gel that Sam insisted using on his girly hairstyle at the time. Course you know what head wounds are like, it just wouldn't stop bleeding. I gotta admit I actually felt kinda sorry for him – when he saw what had happened he took it worse than I did."
"I did not! I just felt bad, cos it was bleeding so much. I never actually meant to hit you, I just wanted you to knock it off. When Dad came home and said you were gonna need stitches I was mortified." Sam said, ruefully.
"Yeah, I remember. You just kept saying sorry over and over until I told you to shut up cos you were giving me a headache. Dad just thought the whole thing was funny, he could see you'd learned your lesson and he did tell me I should have stopped the first time you came out."
"Which you should have."
"Hey, I didn't know you were gonna get all Batman on me."
Nathan chuckled.
"Well, I can see now I musta had it easy after all. I don't think Chris ever left me needing stitches." he said and Sam looked even more embarrassed.
"It was a lucky shot – I really wasn't intending to actually do him any damage."
"See, he says that now," said Dean, putting on a wounded look, and Sam felt what little blood remained below his neck give up the fight and join it's friends in his face.
Dean couldn't keep it up though, not with Sam looking quite so mortified, and he put one hand on his brother's shoulder.
"I gotta admit, in Sam's defence, I really don't think he did mean to leave me with stitches. It was just one of those fluky shots. I wish we'd had a video camera though, cos the look on his face when I went down. I think he spent the next month trying to make it up to me."
"Yeah, which you totally didn't take advantage of or anything." said Sam, feeling a little of the heat leave his face.
"Of course not."
Chris shared a long suffering look with Sam.
"Right, cos that's not something big brothers do."
Nathan raised his eyebrows.
"Oh now you're ganging up on us? You might want to reconsider that move, bro, I'm sure Dean and I could dig out the more embarrassing stories if you really want us to?" he said, looking from Chris to Sam and back again.
Jean held up her hands.
"Alright, enough – no one will be embarrassing anyone, do I make myself clear?"
Four sets of eyes swung in her direction and immediately attempted to look innocent. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself laughing although Toby didn't even bother, simply chuckling and shaking his head.
"You know compared to you four, my sister and I look like the Brady Bunch." said Andrea and Jenny nodded.
"Same here. My brother and I used to fight but we definitely never landed each other in the ER."
Nathan shrugged.
"You obviously just didn't have the imagination we did." he said, dodging the elbow that came his way.
"Either that or a small thing called maturity." she retorted. "No offence." she added, looking over at Dean and Sam with a grin.
"None taken."
"Alright, why don't you all go and find something to do while I make a start on dinner. Unless no one wants to eat before midnight?" said Jean.
"Do you need some help clearing this up?" asked Sam, as everyone stood, and Jean shook her head.
"No, I'll be fine." she replied.
"We'll stay here and give you a hand anyway – that way we don't have to listen to more of their stories." said Andrea, inclining her head towards the men.
"Definitely." agreed Jenny, picking up some of the plates.
Before anyone could reply Thomas suddenly exclaimed excitedly.
"Look, look – it's snowing!"
The adults joined him at the window and saw it had indeed snowed while they were eating breakfast. It was falling fairly heavily and there was already a good few inches on the ground.
"Well, I'll be - it's setting in early this year." said Toby.
"Can we go outside, Mom? Please?" said Thomas, looking up at Andrea pleadingly.
"I suppose so. But you'll need to put on those anoraks you keep here." she said and Thomas literally bounced with excitement.
"I'll get em." said Toby, heading for the cupboard in the hall. "Reckon we've got enough waterproofs for the bigger kids as well."
"Did we just get insulted?" said Chris and Nathan nodded.
"I think so."
He looked over at Dean and Sam.
"So, do you want to join us? We could show the kids a thing or two about how to really make a proper snowman."
Dean nodded, looking only slightly less excited than Thomas had.
"I'm in. Sam?"
Sam rolled his eyes but Dean's excitement was infectious.
"Sure, if you promise not to start chucking snowballs like last time."
"Would I?" said Dean, acting as if the thought would never occur to him.
"Actually we should probably watch out for Sam. Sounds like he's got one hell of an aim." said Nathan, looking amused, and Sam ducked his head, nudging Dean with his shoulder.
"Thanks for that. You do realise I'm never gonna live it down?"
Dean just grinned.
Once they were all wrapped up in the endless supply of waterproofs Toby had managed to bring out of the cupboard, they headed outside. The air was cool and crisp, and the flakes that still fell were thick and fluffy.
The two young boys ran around excitedly for about ten minutes, making the adults laugh at their sheer joy. When they finally slowed down Nathan announced that they should have a snowman building competition – oldest versus youngest. They quickly split up into two teams, Nathan, Dean and Thomas on one side and Chris, Sam and Christopher on the other. Toby was designated the judge and got to observe the mayhem from the porch, where he sat himself down comfortably.
It had to be said that both teams took the whole thing extremely seriously. They found spots a good distance apart and before any building even took place there was a whispered discussion that involved lots of suspicious glances towards the rival team. When they did finally start the actual construction, both thought large.
As Toby watched with growing amusement he wondered if there would be enough snow for them to actually complete what were clearly going to be giant snowmen. The time flew as they worked, none of them even noticing when after about an hour the snow actually stopped falling. Both snowmen were equal in height when the perfectly rounded heads were rolled on, leaving just the serious task of decoration. Dean and Sam were in charge of that and both ventured into the woods that bordered the house, coming back with armfuls of pine cones and several long twigs. By the time the two boys had been lifted high enough to add the finishing touches to the faces Toby was seriously impressed.
He came down off the porch, making a show of inspecting both snowmen thoroughly. They each stood about as tall as him with pine cones for eyes, nose, mouth and buttons. The younger team's also had some red and gold leaves, dug out from under the snow, arranged round it's neck like a colourful scarf. The other's meanwhile held two large sticks, as if skiing.
Toby stood back and frowned as if deep in thought. Finally he shook his head.
"Ok, I gotta say – it's a draw."
There were exclamations of disappointment from both teams but he wouldn't be dissuaded and finally they had to grudgingly accept his decision. As they admired each other's handiwork Sam suddenly yelped as a handful of freezing cold snow hit him right in the ear. He whirled round to see Dean innocently looking the other way.
"Oh, you wanna play do you?" said Sam and Dean looked at him, his mouth twitching.
"I have no idea what you mean, Sam." he said, watching warily as Sam bent down and began to gather snow in his hands.
"Now boys," Toby began but it was clearly too late as Nathan also yelled as he was suddenly hit in the back of the head by a snowball. When he turned round Chris held his hands up and pointed at Thomas, who looked indignant.
"It wasn't me, uncle Nate!" he said, stepping away from his father as Nathan began to gather his own handful of snow.
"Oh hell." said Toby, quickly stepping out of the firing line and back onto the porch.
It was the shrieking and yelling that attracted the attention of the girls in the kitchen, and they came out to see what on earth was going on. They were greeted with the sight of a complete free for all, kids and adults tearing round the front yard slipping on the compacted snow and hurling snowballs at anything they could hit. As they watched Nathan jumped on Chris and shoved handfuls of snow down the back of his brother's shirt, Thomas and Christopher looking on and giggling so hard they were going red in the face. Sam meanwhile was literally stalking Dean, both hands holding snowballs, with an evil grin on his face. Dean backed up towards the woods, his hands held up in surrender.
"Now, Sammy, lets not get overexcited here, ok? I can't help it if I'm a good shot."
"I'll give you good shot." said Sam, who felt like he had half an igloo unpleasantly melting down his shirt.
"Sam, come on. Sam, seriously. Sammy!"
Dean was running now, his boots slipping and sliding on the snow as he tried to get away from Sam. His brother's long legs were giving him the advantage though, coupled with the fact Dean was having trouble trying not to laugh at the look of sheer determination on Sam's face.
Toby felt Jean put her arm round his waist and he put his arm round her shoulders, looking down at her.
"Look how happy they are." she whispered, her voice cracking slightly, and he knew she wasn't referring to their own sons.
"I know." he said softly, wishing he could somehow freeze this moment in time for them.
"Hey! A little help here!" yelled Dean at that moment, as he tried to fight off Sam's onslaught.
Nathan and Thomas quickly ran over, yelling a war cry and pelting Sam with snow.
"No fair!" Sam managed to get out, just before he ended up with a mouthful of snow. But he had his own cavalry coming as Chris and Christopher joined the fray, evening out the odds.
Soon all six of them were covered in snow and so convulsed with laughter that they couldn't stand up, let alone throw anything.
Andrea and Jenny were clinging to the railing, holding their ribs and wiping their eyes at the antics of their husbands and their new friends.
Jean shook her head, wiping away her own bittersweet tears and deciding to take control.
"Alright, boys! That's enough – you all come in now and get out of those wet things, you hear?"
All six of them looked up guiltily and immediately straightened up, trying to look as if they hadn't just been rolling around in the snow. As they made their way over there were a few last minutes hits that ended abruptly under Jean's attempt at a glare.
They trooped up the steps and quickly took off soaking wet boots, which Toby took through to put in front of the fire, shaking the snow off of their jackets and out of their hair.
Toby took the jackets to hang up in the shed and Jean handed out warm towels, Jenny and Andrea taking care of the children while the slightly older kids managed to dry themselves. Jean made them all change their clothes, Dean and Sam digging fresh ones out of their bags upstairs and Nathan and Chris finding some old stuff of theirs that had been left behind on previous visits. None of them looked quite as smart as they had that morning but it had been worth it. As they went back downstairs Sam looked at Dean's smiling face and relaxed posture and felt a surge of warmth that had little to do with the dry clothes he was now wearing.
This was what they had come here for. This was what they had both needed, but Dean especially. He loved seeing his brother like this, just having fun. It made him seem younger, the way he should have been if a lifetime of responsibility and duty hadn't been loaded on his shoulders for so many years.
Dean sensed he was being watched and looked up, frowning as he saw Sam's slightly sappy expression.
"What?" he said and Sam immediately wiped the look off his face, knowing Dean wouldn't appreciate the 'moment'.
"Nothing."
Dean didn't quite believe him but he let it go. Knowing Sam he'd probably been thinking something schmaltzy.
Sometimes it was best not to ask.
They went and stood in the lounge, warming themselves in front of the fire. A few moments later Nathan and Chris came down as well, and all four of them looked up as Jean opened the kitchen door.
"Come on now, dinner's ready." she said and they followed her through into the kitchen.
Jenny and Andrea were already sat down, Lori still fast asleep in her carry cot next to her Mom, and the boys were sat at their own little table again. But it was the sight of the adult's table that made Dean stop in his tracks.
He'd never seen anything like it.
A/N I have to give credit for the hair gel story to Ziggy, who had more or less that exact thing happen with her two boys a few weeks ago (although they are a lot older than Dean & Sam were!) I must confess that as soon as she told me about it, I thought immediately of how it would be great to fit it into an SN story. So I did! I just hope her sons don't mind too much..