Dean Winchester was cold. A cold that make his bones brittle, one that surrounded him, as if his blood had been exchanged for some sort of glacial mix. It was worse than when he'd be charged with taking care of the horses at Pastor Jim's on the occasional winter morning when the world beyond the kitchen doors looked like an arctic tundra. This cold engulfed him like he'd stepped onto the frozen pond only to crash through the shiny white surface into the frigid waters below, ensuring a certain death if no one pulled him free. Somewhere in the back of his mind a familiar voice urged him to fight, to hold on. If he didn't he'd be finished. A prospect of a hunter's funeral pyre almost seemed like a reprieve, yet Dean struggled. Fought. He came to consciousness with a wild gasp of breath as sure as if he'd broken from the icy depths of a watery grave.

"Dean!" Sam's voice was high pitched and panicked. It anchored Dean. Calmed, if not warmed. If he'd had the energy he would have made some crack about his little brother sounding like a girl. As it was he barely managed to open his eyes.

Sam's worried face blurred in and out of focus. "Stay awake, Dean. Please stay awake."

"Sammy?" Dean couldn't keep his teeth from chattering.

"I'm here."

Dean frowned at his brother. "What happened? Where's Caleb?"

"Caleb's not here." Sam looked worried.

"I heard him." Dean blinked. Caleb had told him to hold on, to stay with them. "I heard him."

Sam's frown deepened. "He wasn't with us on the hunt."

"Hunt?" Dean was sure he had heard Caleb, so certain he looked past his brother, taking in their surroundings. They were in an old shed, faint light barely visible through some of the cracks between planks. The lone window was boarded up from the outside.

"Dean." Sam touched his face and the younger boy's fingers felt like fire. "Are you with me?"

"Yeah," Dean pulled back, trying to get his bearings. "Where are we? Why are you so freakin' hot?"

Sam grinned. "Finally, you admit I'm the good looking brother."

"Cute," Dean grit his teeth, as his brother pressed his hand against his forehead. Now was not the time for his brother to grow a sense of humor. "Sam?"

"It's not that I'm hot, it's that you're cold. Very, very cold." Sam's face darkened as he withdrew his hand.

"That's because it's freezing in here." Dean had images of the old ice houses people once used to store their meat and other perishables. He didn't see any tell-tale blocks of ice but he was pretty certain he was laying on one.

"It's not cold in here, Dean." Sam gestured to himself. He was wearing an Auburn tee shirt, a hand me down of Caleb's from his college days that proved Sam had hit a growth spurt.

"Damn." Dean coughed. "Are you sweating? "

"It's like seventy-five," Sam reiterated, his changing voice going up a decibel. "I've been trying everything to warm you up. Nothing works."

"Just tell me you didn't spoon me." Dean tried for a smile. "Because you know I'd rather freeze to death, right?"

"I wouldn't joke about that." Sam's face remained serious, fear deepening the green in his eyes. He looked a lot like their dad. Dean felt a pang of guilt. Sam was scared. Dean had a foreboding feeling he was in no shape to offer any kind of reassurance.

"Joking is my thing, remember."

Sam's gaze remained dark and stormy. "That thing Dad was hunting, the one we couldn't pin down, it stabbed you with some kind of spear. You've been out of it ever since. You scared the crap out of me, Dean."

"I'm sorry, Kiddo." Dean had a flash of the woods. He and Sam had been on a hunt with their Dad and Hollis Newberry. They had split up to cover more ground and Dean and Sam had stopped to look at a track. They were bent over trying to make out the markings when Dean remembered getting a whiff of something rancid right before a searing pain tore through his side. He thought he'd been shot, but then he'd heard the growl. When he'd turned he'd been met with a face straight of a nightmare.

"I still don't know what it is," Sam was saying. "It looks a little like an elf, but a lot uglier. But since when do elves use weapons?"

"Uglier than an elf?" Dean arched a brow. "Now that's an achievement."

Sam clenched his hands into fists, color warmed his face. "I tried to get a shot off, but it was too close to you. It hit me with the other end of the staff and I was out. I woke up here. It took our weapons and our duffel. The radios, too."

"Are you okay?" Dean took a better look at his brother, the loss of their equipment paling under the possibility he'd let his little brother get hurt. If there was a wound, it was hidden by the mass of floppy hair Sam refused to cut.

"I'm fine, Dean." Sam brushed the concern aside with an eye roll that was common place these days. "Did you not hear what I said? You're the one that's in trouble. You were stabbed! The wound on your side looks a lot like the marks Dad and Hollis found on the bodies at the morgue. We both know what happened to them."

Dean looked down to his chest. His brother had found some old army blankets in the shed. They were piled on top of Dean. Dean shoved at the dirty, damp wool, until he could see his own t-shirt. The odd warm weather had them dressing lighter than a normal December in North Carolina. Dean longed for his leather jacket that he'd left in the Impala. His fingers were clumsy and slow to respond to his commands feeling as if he'd thrown one too many snow balls without gloves. When he managed to lift the end he saw Sam hadn't bothered with a bandage. There wasn't any need. The puncture was clean, star-shaped with the skin around it ashen, almost bluish in color. It hurt, Dean hurt, but the ache was distant, almost like a dull throbbing from an old injury. Dean knew the lack of pain and blood, which might have been good in other injuries, was probably not a positive sign in his current case

"The bleeding stopped quickly, more like it froze." Sam pulled the blanket up once more around Dean. "I think it's spreading, like some kind of poison."

Dean didn't protest when Sam replaced the covering, tucking them around Dean's shoulders. "That's not the Christmas present I was hoping for, Dude."

"Stop joking," Sam snapped. "We're trapped in here and I don't know what to do to help you."

"Hey, it's okay."

"It's not okay, Dean."

"Have you tried to get out? "

The question earned Dean another classic teenage eye roll. "What do you think I've been doing besides sharing body heat with you, Jerk?"

Dean tried to sit up. "Maybe if we both put our shoulders into it..."

"No," Sam placed a hand on the center of his chest. "If this is some kind of poison the more you move around the worse it will get. Besides, the door is barred with a crowbar or maybe a shovel, I can't tell. Despite looking like it's ready to fall down the boards in this place are solid. Besides, that thing is still out there. I heard it not too long ago. When I couldn't find a way out. I stacked what barrels and sacks of grain I could find against the door. It might not keep it out, but maybe it will buy us some time."

"That was smart, Sammy." Dean nodded. His brother hadn't completely been ignoring all their father's lessons. "We'll just wait it out. Dad will find us before our guest decides to be a more hands on host."

"That's what I thought." Sam brought his hand to his mouth, biting on the side of his thumb. "Hours ago."

"Hours ago?" Dean mustered enough strength to make it to his elbows and this time Sam didn't try to stop him. He looked to the boarded up window. The light was brighter than it should have been. The last time Dean had checked his watch on the hunt it had been close to four in the morning. His watch was now missing. "Damn. How long have I been out?"

"Seven, maybe eight hours. Morning came and went a long time ago. It's got to be late afternoon."

"What?"

"If Dad was going to find us, he would have done so by now. Whatever that thing is, it covered its tracks. Maybe it can only come out in the dark, and that just gives us a few hours. So, if it took out Dad and Hollis…"

"No way." Dean shook his head. "Dad is too smart for that and you know it, Sam."

"But if it caught us…"

"Then maybe it wanted to use us as bait." Dean wasn't sure how intelligent the thing they were hunting was, but it was smart enough to take their things and their weapons. He was willing to put any theory on the table to counter Sam's thought trajectory.

"You mean it laid a trap for us?"

"I don't think it was a coincidence. Why not kill us out right like the other vics? Why bring us here? It doesn't make sense." Dean wasn't in the habit of trying to figure out why the things they hunted did the things they did but once patterns were established they rarely changed without a reason. Even the supernatural wasn't random.

Sam shrugged. "Then where are Dad and Hollis?If that thing wanted them to find us, shouldn't they have already?"

"They may have gone for back-up," Dean sometimes hated that his brother no longer took his word for the truth, that he had to apply logic to everything. The faith Sam used to cling to seemed to be fading with the onset of puberty.

"Dad wouldn't leave us behind, Dean."

"He would if he thought someone else had a better chance of finding us."

"Caleb."

"I told you I heard Damien's voice." Since the Christmas Dean found himself lost in Rockefeller Center when he was only seven Caleb had an uncanny way of always knowing where Dean was and when he was trouble. It was a connection that Dean couldn't explain, one that some time annoyed the hell out of him, but it was also a link he often relied on. "He's got to be trying to find us. I know it."

"That makes sense." Sam nodded. "Caleb was meeting up with Bobby before coming to Pastor Jim's, right?"

Dean glanced to the window again. He'd talked to Caleb a few hours before they'd headed out on the hunt. "Damien said they would start that way early this morning. The farm's only an hour or so from where we started our hunt. Dad would have known Damien wouldn't be late for Christmas."

Sam's voice softened. "Not like last year."

Dean winced at the mention of the previous year. He had believed Caleb was dead, killed on another hunt gone wrong. "Definitely not our best Christmas."

"But everything worked out in the end." Sam was sounding more like the hopeful kid he could still be at times. His moods could give a guy whiplash. "We found Caleb, Dad saved us all from the wendigo. Jim called it a Christmas miracle. It'll be the same for us this year."

Dean forced a confident grin he didn't feel. "What's a Winchester Christmas without a little mayhem and dastardly poison?"

"Can we not just have one normal holiday, Dean?"

Dean held back on a sigh. Sam had become obsessed with fitting their family into a box they would never belong. "There's that word again, Sammy. We don't exactly do normal."

"But we used to right? I mean before mom?"

"I guess." The mention of their mother drained what little adrenaline Dean had managed. He fought off a shiver with a grimace, reclining once more against the makeshift pillow Sam had created with some kind of sack of grain. "I mean, the first Christmas that really stands out to me was our first one at Pastor Jim's place when you were about a year and half old."

"I bet," Sam frowned. "That's the year Caleb traumatized you by telling you Santa wasn't real? That year has to be at the top of the worst Christmases ever."

"Better traumatized early than beat up in the sixth grade for being the North Pole's great defender." Dean realized his brother was attempting to distract him, to keep him awake. He would play along as long as his body allowed.

"Shut up, jerk." Sam's face reddened. "It was the fifth grade and a black eye doesn't equate being beat up. The other kid got a whole lot worse."

"Thanks to all those moves I taught you, bitch."

"Whatever."

Dean's smile was genuine this time. "Actually that first Christmas at the farm wasn't so bad. I was with you and dad. Jim had his typical huge tree with all the trimmings. I remember the whole place smelled like oranges, popcorn and cinnamon. Atticus Finch was wearing reindeer antlers and sleigh bells. For a brief second I might have entertained Jim being the Big Guy himself."

"Jim as Santa?" Sam laughed.

"You thought old Pastor Solomon was Santa until you were ten."

Sam shrugged, realizing Dean had the upper hand. "Jim does smell like cookies most of the time."

"Santa or not, it was the first time I'd felt really safe since the night of the fire." A look of sadness and something close to pity crossed Sam's face. Dean quickly switched gears. "Besides, I got Damien out of the deal and my first bike, so not a bad Christmas after all."

Sam's mouth twitched, a hint of dimple showing. "Caleb is your favorite Christmas gift?"

"No." Dean knew the answer was too quick and too defensive, because Sam's smile doubled in wattage. He blamed his sick state for the fact he had admitted any such thing out loud. The last thing he needed was for Sam to tell Caleb. Damien's ego was monstrous as it was. "I'm just saying that year was better than the one before it."

Sam lost his grin and Dean almost regretted not letting his brother have his fun when that look of pity returned. Dean hadn't been lying when he said the Christmas at Jim's was the first one that really stuck out to him, but he did remember bits and pieces of that Christmas just weeks after his mother's murder. They were mostly feelings, dark and despairing, but there were a few images Dean would rather forget. Blinking Christmas lights that had been haphazardly strung around a lonely faded pink flamingo in the front of some rundown motel they were staying. His father slumped against the wall, a bottle of Jack Daniels on the nightstand, pictures and pieces of their former lives strewn around him on a rumpled twin bed.

Sam cleared his throat, pulling Dean from the past. "So, you don't remember anything about the ones before mom died?"

"I was four, Sam." Dean shifted, wishing his brother wasn't so dogged. A new wave of cold ran through him and he sighed. Sam's pity had been overtaken once more by concern and fear and Dean couldn't decide which was worse. He took a measured breath and broke his own rule not to reminisce about things that were bound to bring nothing but pain. "I do remember one thing."

"Really?" Sam scooted closer, pulling his knees into his chest, which was no small feat since Dean swore the kid's legs had grown twice as long as the rest of him over the summer. He was a baby giraffe. "Tell me."

"It was the year I got the best present ever."

Sam looked intrigued. "What was it?"

"A football."

"A football?" Sam's sudden skepticism was almost comical. Dean was certain Sam thought he might have been hypothermic and delirious. "But you hate football."

"I don't hate football." Dean snapped in the same way he had denied becoming friends with Caleb being a huge deal. Dean hadn't touched a football since the night of the fire. "I just think baseball is the smarter, more dignified sport."

"Then why the big deal over the football?"

"Because it came with a promise." Dean licked his lips, surprised at how thirsty he was. Thoughts of Pastor Jim's hot chocolate tried to distract him. It brought to mind a recent hunt with Caleb when they'd let their curiosity get the best of them and opened a package Jim had ordered them not to touch. Dean wasn't sure why those thoughts from Thanksgiving floated through his mind, but he shoved them aside and went on with his current bad decision. "Mom and Dad promised me that when spring came I'd have someone to toss it to."

Sam's face lit with understanding. "Mom was pregnant with me that Christmas."

"About four or five months I guess since you showed up in May. She and Dad made a huge deal out of telling me I was going to be a big brother on Christmas Eve. I think I did something girly like insisting we hang a stocking for you."

"So the best Christmas gift you ever got wasn't Caleb or a football? It was actually me." Sam looked entirely too pleased with himself. "I am Dean Winchester's best Christmas memory."

Dean didn't bother to deny the truth this time, but couldn't let Sam get too big of a head. Dealing with one brother's ego was bad enough. "Or maybe it was just the knowledge that I was forever going to be ruler and master over someone younger and far inferior to me." Dean bobbed his brows. "Being a big brother is almost like being an overlord or even better a superhero. Mom and Dad might as well have wrapped up a red cape and given it to me instead of some stupid pig skin."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Right, you're practically Superman."

"I've always liked Batman better." Dean shivered as the cold seeped through another layer of his body. "But I pretty much feel like I'm in The Fortress of Solitude, so maybe the Man of Steel is more poetic."

"You know originally in the 1942 comic Superman's fortress wasn't located in an icy polar cap. It was just in a mountain, kind of like the Rockies."

"Thank you, Trivial Pursuit." Dean clenched his teeth trying to think warm, balmy thoughts. Anything to stave off the grip of unconsciousness he could clearly feel tugging at him once more. He was well aware that going to sleep when you were hypothermic could mean never waking up again. "But I'm smack dab in the polar wastes that we see in the later years."

"I know but Dad and Caleb will find us soon." Sam glanced to the door and then back to Dean."They'll be pissed if they have to carry you out of here and just think how Caleb will rib you for passing out like some girl."

"Damien can be an ass." Dean blinked, understanding what his brother was doing, wishing he could comply and stay the hell awake. "You tell him his timing sucks."

"You can tell him." Sam grabbed Dean's hand, a move that hadn't happened in years. Teenage Sam was proving to be so different from the little boy Dean was used to. He was not tactile, preferring to show his emotions via cold glares and barbed words. He would probably be mortified later. As if reading his thoughts, Sam squeezed tighter. "You know he doesn't listen to anything I say."

Dean wasn't sure Caleb really listened to anyone, except maybe John Winchester. It was a weakness they shared. But even if Dean's father had been the one yelling at him to stay awake, to fight harder, he'd been unable to follow the commands. The temptation to close his eyes to escape the bitter cold and just let go was far too strong, even for a superhero.

Tbc...tomorrow