Disclaimer: Only the idea is mine. Supernatural and the characters therein belong to the actors, writers, directors, producers, and technicians that bring it to life. Rated T (just in case).

Chapter Two

The next morning, Dean bounced on Sam's bed, chanting, "Snow day! Snow day!"

They made celebratory pancakes together, goofing around at the same time. It was a behavior growing infrequent as they aged. During the previous summer, Dean decided he needed to be an adult. Last April, just before Sammy's tenth birthday, their father officially told the youngest Winchester about monsters in the night. Really, the kid had known for years, but everyone pretended otherwise. With his youngest in on the big secret, John insisted Sam train in earnest, plus research and go on hunts once in a while.

The 'Sam on hunts' part frightened Dean half to death; not that he would admit it. Having Sam training and researching was nothing new, he'd been doing that for years – since he could walk practically. But hunting? Seeing some creature towering over his ten year old brother never failed to make Dean's guts clench. Never mind the ones preparing to slap him into next week, shred him, or just flat out kill him. Sammy just looked so small next to those things. It made protecting him so much harder on a hunt. Though Dean was determined to show his father he could set a good example for his baby brother, he also thought perhaps the responsibility of watching out for Sam would be easier if he felt more grown-up. So Dean bluffed. He'd discovered early on that if you acted a certain way long enough, people either accepted it as truth, or you became exactly what you were pretending to be in the first place. Bluffing in the face of concerned adults had helped the Winchester boys avoid countless scrapes. Thus, for the past few months, he acted as if he were thirty instead of fifteen, hoping to trick his brain into accepting the pretense as reality. It hadn't worked so far. Generally it just annoyed Sam, who consequently reminded Dean he was fifteen every chance he got, in the annoying adolescent whine he'd developed lately. Dean shook his head. Not the kid's fault. Sammy got what little childhood he had left yanked away, thanks to Dad announcing the monsters in the closet were real: here's a gun to help deal with them. Oh, and better check under the bed too. Dean soothed Sam's nightmares for a week after Dad finished talking to him.

He sighed and dried the dishes from breakfast. Next to him, Sam washed the pan. Baby brother was growing again; his pants and shirt sleeves were getting short. When Dad got back, he'd have to point out that it was time to get some new clothes for Sam. They finished up the dishes and Dean disappeared into the bedroom for a minute.

When he returned, Sam was reading on the couch. He asked, "So what do you want to do today, kiddo?" When Sam looked at him, Dean waggled his eyebrows at his younger brother, grinning at the same time.

"I dunno. Finish reading my book. Watch a little tv. We could play some cards maybe, if you want." Sam shrugged and focused again on the book in his lap, hair flopping over his eyes.

Dean moaned as if in pain. "Aaahh! Come on. There's snow outside. Lots of it. We should shovel out the front and do a little training. But once we finish that, we can have some fun. Snow forts, snowball fights, snow angels. Hell, I'll even help you build a snowman if you want. Finish the book later, when there isn't fresh, fluffy, not often experienced by us snow blanketing the ground. Jeesh. What is wrong with you?" Dean flopped on the couch, giving Sam a fraction of a second's warning to move his legs or get them crushed. He snatched the book from his brother's hands, tossing it behind him on the floor.

"Snow, Sammy. We should go outside and have fun."

"Hey!" Sam scrambled over the back of the couch and retrieved his book. "Don't toss my books around. I don't toss your guns around." He attempted to smooth down the now bent corner of the cover.

"That's because if you toss my guns around they might kill you. Even if they don't, I will. Your books aren't going to kill me, except maybe with boredom. And you're still too scrawny to do me any damage."

Predictably, Sam rolled his eyes. A pissed off expression graced his face for a moment. Looking his brother right in the eye he said, "Haha. You're hysterical."

"You know, I'm going to name that face you keep making. You better not make it at Dad either."

"Yeah? Why not?" Sam unconsciously puffed out his chest.

Dean just laughed. "Because it's the same face he makes when he's pissed off about something and if he thinks you're making it at him? Whew... let's just say training sessions will be intense for a few days."

"Please, they can't get any worse than they already are with him. No matter how I do, he wants better. My bruises have bruises from getting tossed and thrown around while I'm learning moves. What else could he do?"

A moment of quiet followed, then Dean spoke in a flat tone, hiding his face from his brother as he spoke. "How about take you out to the woods and dump you there with nothing but a knife? Then tell you to find your own way back to the motel? How about not telling you someone died because you screwed up? But really, you know anyway because the look on his face says it all. Or he might just say real quiet, 'I'm disappointed in you, son. I thought you were better than this.' You want him to do any of that to you?"

Sam's mouth literally hung open at his brother's words. More than the shock of Dean actually discussing feelings was what he revealed.

Finally, the thoughts bouncing around in Sam's head settled enough for him to ask, "Dad did all those things? To you? Where was I? When was this?"

"You stayed with Bobby for a bit this summer, remember? Dad and I hunted a werewolf. I screwed up. Someone else paid the price." He heaved a sigh, then stood quickly. "C'mon, Sam. We should go shovel the front in case Dad comes back or anybody else shows up. Then we can go have a snowball fight or something in the back." Dean went to the small room the two boys shared and began digging through his duffel bag for warmer clothes.

Just like that, Sam knew that the discussion was over. The fact that Dean shared at all was telling enough. Whatever happened bothered him, a lot.

Two hours later, the front steps and walkway were clear. There wasn't really a driveway for the cabin, so they'd done their best to make a path to the road. Since the road was out of the way, it hadn't been plowed yet, but Dean insisted. Sam didn't really care much, shoveling made his shoulders ache, but it was a good kind of ache.

Dean declared it training time for a little while, since they were both sweaty from shoveling anyway, then lunch. Sam didn't complain. Since Dad was gone more often than not, Dean had taken over a lot of his training. Better Dean than Dad, Sam thought. Dean was tough, but he rarely yelled. When Sam did something wrong, Dean would show him how to do it right. Usually he explained why it was important as he showed his little brother the proper technique. He understood instinctively that the why was just as important as the how to Sammy. When Sam understood why he was doing something, he generally learned faster and was better at it.

Right now, he was trying to teach Sam the finer points of a good old-fashioned beat down. Because sometimes you just had to fight it out. With a whumpf, Sam went down hard in a snow drift, buried slightly.

"You did that on purpose!" He yelled indignantly, struggling to get up out of the snow. Slapping away Dean's outstretched hand, he gave up trying to rise.

"Well, duh. That's why they call it training. Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah. It's just kinda nice here. A little warm actually. Cocooned maybe. Comfortable."

"Such a geek. Get up before you freeze."

"Why don't you come make me?" Sam challenged.

"Oh-ho! Look who thinks he's a tough guy now. What are you gonna …" There was a muffled, "Ouch!" as Dean fell face first into the drift, courtesy of Sam's leg sweep.

Sam laughed when his brother pushed himself up and sat back on his heels. Snowflakes covered the cap Dean wore and clung to his eyebrows and eyelashes. The heat of his skin melted it and rivulets made their way down his cheeks.

"You think that's funny?" Dean spat a mouthful of snow off to the side.

"Y-yes," Sam said, then snorted with laughter.

"This is funny." With a lunge, Dean pinned his brother and began shoveling snow at him. Handfuls went down his shirt, some smooshed into his hair. Shrieking and laughing, Sam fought back as best he could, trying to get as much snow on Dean as his brother was getting on him. Eventually, they wore each other out.

Dean stood and extended his hand to Sam again. "C'mon. Let's get inside to warm up and dry off." He tilted his head. "If you were a little taller, you could be a snow yeti."

Sam grabbed the proffered hand and let Dean haul him to his feet. "If Bigfoot doesn't exist, that means yeti don't exist either. Doesn't it? Or would it be yetis? Which one is the plural?"

"Dorkface, do I look like I know? Or even care? I'm sure you'll look it up first chance you get. Let me know what you find out. Now, inside. Dry clothes and lunch, let's go."

Dean insisted they both take showers to warm up. For lunch, Sam heated up canned soup while Dean made grilled cheese sandwiches. Hot chocolate was also on the menu. After eating, weapons training time was declared. It was Sam's job to take apart his gun, identify each piece by name, and put it back together. Then he had to clean it. They decided not to risk target practice outside. The sound might carry farther in the crisp air, and Dean didn't want to chance someone hearing the shots. As they sat companionably at the table cleaning the guns, Dean quizzed Sam on the proper way to kill the monsters they might encounter.

"Ghost," he said.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Find the remains. Salt and burn. Everybody knows that."

"You think if I asked that little friend of yours from class, Joey-whatever-his-name-is, that he would know what to do if he saw a ghost? No, he'd piss his pants and trip over his own feet running away."

"Like a normal person would." This time Sam added pursed lips to the eye roll.

Silently praying for the patience not to kill his little brother, Dean asked, "How do you protect yourself from a ghost while you're looking for the bones?"

"Stand behind you," Sam joked.

Dean smiled, he couldn't help it. The kid was just so damn cute when he was trying to be funny. Besides, he was right. Dean would always protect his little brother.

Still, he wanted to make sure. "Or?" He prompted.

"Or Dad?"

"Sam, quit being a goofball and answer the damn question." Dean scowled, but it quickly morphed back into a grin. The kid was funny today.

Sighing heavily, Sam said, "Make a salt circle or use iron. They can't get past the salt. The iron disrupts them and makes them dissipate."

"Uh, no geek speak. Iron makes them go away for a little bit."

"That's what I said, Dean."

"Yeah, in geek speak. Talk like a human."

"You talk like a caveman." Sam stuck out his tongue and put his thumb against his nose, wiggling his fingers at Dean. When he pulled his hand away, a smudge of gun oil stayed behind. Dean lost it. "You got something on your nose," he managed to get out before the laughing started. He kept going until he couldn't breathe and tears streamed down his face. At first, Sam huffed and acted annoyed, but eventually he gave in and laughed too. As Sam wiped the oil away, Dean stopped laughing enough to speak.

"Payback's a bitch, huh, baby brother?" Dean mopped the tears from his face with the tail of his shirt.

"Payback for what, exactly?"

"Messing with your truly awesome big brother."

Sam repeated his face from earlier that morning.

Dean said, "What? Are you trying to patent that look? Get it outta your system, because Dad will be back from the hunt soon and you'll be screwed."

"Dad told us he'd be back last week."

"He got held up. It's not easy, working cases alone."

Sam ignored him and went to plop on the couch, retrieving his book on the way.

Dean tried again. "At least it means we get to stay in one school for some extra time. We've been here a month and a half, thanks to the different hunts Dad's been working. Longest we've been at one school in a while."

Flipping open the book, Sam muttered, "Mm-hmm."

"You want to go outside and have a snowball fight? We could call it training. Or build a snowman? I did tell you I'd help you with that." Dean changed the subject, trying to ease past the hurt they both felt.

Sam looked at him, gauging a response. Standing, he moved toward the door and began putting on his boots. "I will bury you in an avalanche of snowballs," he declared.

"Big words, little man. Let's see you prove it." Dean joined him by the door and they armed themselves to go out in the cold.

The snowball fight of the century lasted nearly two hours. Then they built the promised snowman, although it looked a lot more like a snow monster. Dean turned building it into an anatomy lesson for Sam. The head was deformed from the number of times it had been lopped off. Decapitation lessons. Holes riddled its gut courtesy of knife lessons. The encroaching darkness finally called an end to the day.

As they went inside, Dean said, "Good thing snowmen are self-repairing."

"Technically they aren't. We had to keep putting his head back on." For the second time that day, Sam shrugged out of his wet coat.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "True enough. Hey, your hair is soaking wet – go get a towel and dry off. I'll start dinner."

"What're we having?" Sam asked as he headed for the bathroom.

"Mac and cheese with hot dogs," Dean answered.

Sam made a face in the bathroom mirror, but didn't say anything. He knew Dean had gone shopping just before the storm. Everyone at school was talking about how their parents were stocking up, and Dean decided he needed to do the same. So there was plenty of food in the house. But mac and cheese was a lot easier to stock up on when they were stretching out the money Dad left them. So Sam wouldn't complain, not about this. Dean did his best.

"You want your hot dogs boiled or toasted?" His brother shouted from the kitchen.

"Both," Sam called back. Dean muttered in the kitchen about princesses, making Sam grin. After drying his hair with a towel, he decided to change his shirt again too, since it was damp. He pulled it off and hung it over the shower curtain rod. Then he went to the bedroom for something dry, ignoring Dean's wolf-whistle as he passed through the main room. Randomly, he grabbed a shirt and tugged it on. Dressed warmly now, Sam stood before the window, as he had the previous evening. In the dim twilight, he could see that the snowman's head had fallen off again; it rested on the ground staring vacantly into the woods. Evidence of their epic battle was all over the yard: small walls, piles of ammunition, blobs of snow spattered against trees. Another boy about Sam's age stood by the edge of the woods surveying the damage. Sam waved at him and he waved back. Then Sam noticed the boy didn't have a coat on. This time, it definitely wasn't his imagination.

"Dean!" He yelled.

The tone did it. His brother didn't even question it, just came running to the bedroom, pistol drawn, looking for signs of trouble.

Sam pointed at the window. "Do you see him?"

Dean moved to stand in front of the window, pushing his brother behind him. There was a boy about Sam's age out by the trees. He waved to Dean. Sam waved back.

"Don't encourage him!" Dean slapped Sam's hand down.

"Why not? He seems friendly."

"He's not Casper. It's a ghost, not a cartoon." Dean pulled the shotgun loaded with rock salt out from beneath the bed. "You put the salt line on the door when we came back in, right?"

"Yeah. Maybe. Lemme go check." Sam ran out to the main room.

"Sam!" Dean chased after him. His little brother was standing in front of the door, smiling.

"I remembered."

"You did. That's good, Sam." Dean ruffled his brother's hair gently, then pulled him away from the door. "C'mon. Dinner should be ready soon. Get those hot dogs out of the water and put them under the broiler if you want 'em toasted." He checked the salt lines on all the windows, then placed the shotgun on the kitchen table. A glance out the window showed that the ghost appeared to be gone. Going outside to check wasn't a consideration. He wouldn't risk leaving Sam inside, defenseless and alone. Instead, he tried to act as normal as possible to keep Sam from panicking. But while they ate dinner he kept an eye on the door and the windows.

Sam knew that seeing the ghost worried Dean. His brother kept staring at the windows. He ate, but mechanically, without his usual gusto. The rock salt loaded shotgun rested on the table between them, pointed at the door. When the wind kicked up outside, Dean made a face and got up to look out the window, taking the shotgun with him.

Quietly, Sam asked, "Is the little boy still out there?"

"No. He's gone. He left before we sat down to eat. It's snowing again though. Our snowball fight will be Pompeii soon and we'll need to shovel again in the morning."

Sam gathered up the dishes and carried them to the sink to clean them. As he soaped and rinsed, he watched Dean. "You're worried, aren't you? About the ghost?"

"Everything will be fine, Sam. It can't get in here. The salt lines keep it out. We can make a salt circle around your bed tonight if it will make you feel better. In the morning, we'll go to the library and see if we can figure this out. We can call Bobby on a pay phone and see what he thinks. He'll let Dad know when he checks in too."

"I'm not worried. Except that I think I saw a different ghost last night."

"What? When? Why didn't you tell me?" Dean's attention was finally diverted away from the window by Sam's admission.

"Last night, while you were sleeping, the wind woke me. I got up and watched the snow fall for a bit. Just before I went back to bed, I thought I saw someone by the trees. It was too tall to be that boy. But a branch broke off and I got distracted. When I looked back there wasn't anything there." Sam placed the last dish on the drying rack and turned to face his brother.

Dean asked, "Why didn't you wake me up to tell me this?"

Sam shrugged. "I figured that I imagined it and that you'd laugh at me, or be mad 'cause I woke you up. I did check all the salt lines before I went back to bed. We were safe. I had my gun under my pillow and I knew you did too."

The fifteen year old shook his head, not sure what concerned him the most: that his brother didn't want to make him mad by waking him up for a possible ghost sighting, or that he considered it perfectly normal to sleep with a gun under the pillow. Or any of the other things wrong with that last statement.

He went over to the couch and sat, still facing the door. After putting the shotgun on the coffee table, he waved his brother over. Sam came slowly, almost afraid he was going to be yelled at. Dean didn't usually yell at him, but sometimes, if he really screwed up, exceptions were made.

Dean waited until his brother met his eyes, then said, "Next time, I want you to wake me up right away. I might be mad for a minute about losing sleep, but once I know why, I'll get over it. You did the right thing checking the salt lines and the guns. But your most important line of defense is me, and I can't protect you if I don't know what's going on, okay?"

"Okay, Dean. I get it. Do you promise to wake me up too, no matter what?"

"What do I need to do that for?"

"How else can I watch your back? You'll be so busy protecting me you won't watch out for yourself. So I gotta do it."

"Oh, I didn't think of that." Dean smiled at him. "Okay, Mighty Mouse. It's a deal. If anything happens, I'll wake you up. Promise."

Sam nodded gravely, then ruined the effect by bouncing on the couch. "So what're we going to about the ghost of the little boy?"

"Nothing. We'll be careful tonight, then tomorrow, like I said, we'll take a walk over to the library to see what we can find out. After we figure out who he is, we'll salt and burn him. End of story."

"Cool. Wanna watch tv?" As far as Sam was concerned, the problem was taken care of.

"Sure. Go ahead and find something." Dean ignored the television, watching the door instead. Sam didn't notice, wrapped up in some nature documentary. Gradually, his head slipped lower until it was resting on the couch arm. Dean considered carrying him into the bedroom, then decided against it. Dean knew if he sat on the bed, he might fall asleep himself, so it was better to stay out here. But leaving Sam alone in the bedroom while he stayed out here wasn't an option either.

"Sorry buddy, guess you're sleeping on the couch tonight," he said to his little brother.

A few hours later, Dean's head was dropping onto his chest as he fought to stay awake. The full day of shoveling and fresh air was taking its toll. When he drifted off for the second time, he got up and went to the kitchen sink. He drank a glass of water, then splashed some on his face. When he lifted his head, he looked out the window. The frowning face of an older man stared back at him. Dean gasped and fell backward onto his butt. He scrambled back to the couch and grabbed for the shotgun, waking up Sammy in his haste.

"Huh? What's going on?" The youngster asked, still half-asleep.

Dean almost answered, "Nothing," but remembered his promise and said instead, "There's a different ghost outside now. He was just at the window."

Sam sat bolt upright on the couch, eyes wide. "Which window?"

"Kitchen." Dean had a good grip on the shotgun and made his way cautiously back to the sink. He peered out the window, but saw nothing. Sam shadowed him, holding a crowbar.

"Where did you get that?" Dean asked, indicating the crowbar.

"Closet. Dad put it there before he left."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Nice. Good call."

A smile graced Sam's face briefly, but it slipped as soon as he looked out the window. "Dean, there isn't anything there."

"Yeah, I can see that. Not sure where it went. The snow makes it hard to see detail. Ugh. Feels like I'm in the middle of a snow globe that some idiot just shook."

"I think the snow is pretty." Sam moved away from the kitchen window and headed for the one in the main room.

Dean snorted. "You would. It's useful for getting a day off from school. It's fun to have snowball fights. Other than that, it's a pain. You gotta shovel, it's hard to walk, hard to drive."

"That doesn't mean it isn't nice to look at." Sam carefully pushed the curtain back, making sure not to disturb the salt line. He looked out the window and saw the figure from the night before by the trees. "Uh, Dean? Is that the ghost you saw? Because I'm pretty sure it's the one I saw last night."

Swearing, Dean joined him at the window.

"Yeah, that's him. So we've got two ghosts on our hands. Great. Just great."

"Well, it's better than three, right?" Sam asked pragmatically.

Dean reached over to ruffle his brother's hair. "Yeah, squirt. You make a good point there." After a pause, he continued, "Okay, here's the plan. We're going make a salt circle around the couch, then sit tight until morning. Then we shovel out and head into town. We'll call Bobby on the way to the library."

"Works for me." Sam grabbed a sack of salt from the supply duffel and headed for the couch. He quickly poured a thick line of salt around the couch, carefully making the circle large enough that nothing outside the circle could touch them if they were on the couch. When he was finished, they sat at opposite ends of the couch, facing each other. Dean kept the shotgun in his lap, muzzle pointed at the floor. Sam cradled the crowbar.

"You know Sam, it's okay for you to go back to sleep," Dean told him.

"Nope. I'm going to stay awake and watch your back," Sam replied with all the seriousness an almost eleven year old could muster.

They were both tired but relieved when the snow stopped around dawn and the morning sun finally peeked through the windows.