"Snoball."

Mystic25

Summary: A story about Supernatural and Christmas.

Rating: T for language.

Dedication: To Jared and Genevieve Padalecki's newest little son; welcome, and enjoy the world kid.

xxxxXxxxx

"Doesn't matter who we are. What matters is what we know."

~Dean Winchester

"Supernatural" Episode: "Wishful Thinking."

"Five minutes of a lifetime."

~Steven Chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

xxxxXxxxx

Bainbridge, Ohio

1994

They were lined up in rows like soldiers at the head of a battle front. Round fat fuzzy blobs of pink sugar and stretchy marshmallow zigzagged with a line of icing that seemed to say "Eat me" like that book Sam went on and on about even though it was completely for girls and toddlers who liked the Disney channel.

Dean stood poised at the counter, watching the snack cakes like they would move and flip him off for staring at them indecently, kind of like the way the overworked woman with the orange hair and the Christmas sweater was watching him. "You ready to ring up son?" She stared at him over her Clark Kent thick glasses, already branding him as a hoodlum in his dirty jeans, gray Henley threadbare at the cuffs, weather worn coat, red basket brimming with items that looked too heavy for him to carry out into the snow let alone pay for.

Dean reached out and picked up one of the packages of Snoballs, his fingers crinkling them in their plastic wrappings. "Just give me a second." He squeezed them like he was testing oranges at the supermarket.

The cashier's eyes narrowed in agitation, her hackles raising a little more. "Don't touch it if you can't pay for it; customers don't want stuff kids have fondled."

"I have money sweetheart," Dean held up a wrinkled 20 dollar bill that had seen it's better days 10 exchanges ago. It's now just a wrinkled piece of linen with a ghost light image of Andrew Jackson. He snatched up two more packs of snowballs and threw them into his overflowing basket, hefting it all onto the countertop with a thud. "And I only fondle things that are worth my while."

"You have a foul mouth boy," The cashier jerked his items out of the shopping cart, wringing them all up with jack hammer like sounds of her fingers on the register's keys, spreading each item out in front of her in a line. "You're short by three dollars." She announced it like she was assigning him detention.

Dean's face scrunched up in irritation at her snappish tone. He looked over his items, trying to find a way to prove her wrong, but all the prices and labels were on the bottom of the boxes and cans, and the way that orange hair was staring at him was like she had taken lessons from a poltergeist on how to freak someone out.

"Snack cakes are a dollar a piece." The woman said it like it was a suggestion.

Dean's scowl deepened. "That's extortion!"

"That's the price you pay if you want'em," She insisted with the superior attitude of adults who were self-proclaimed at knowing everything. She picked up one of the packages of pink Snoballs. "If you lose these you'll can afford the rest."

"No," Dean snatched the snack cakes out of her hands and put it back on the counter. He thumbs through the remaining items like they were paperbacks on a library shelf and hands her a box of macaroni shells with squeezable cheese and a can of tomato soup.

The woman took the box and can from him. "You kids today, giving up healthy food for hot pink sugar." She punched numbers on her ancient register that seemed to puff out smoke with each keystroke.

"It's fake cheese goo and cardboard C's , and a red glob in a can sweetheart," Dean insisted. "They're not exactly vegetarian alternatives."

The woman's glare turned murderous, like she was going to do something that would get CPS sent out to her little Mini Stop-N-Shop on the side of the road for what she wanted to do to the 15-year-old. "No one's daddy's teach manners anyone manners anymore."

"Mine was too busy teaching me other things." Dean retorted back.

The cashier's face nearly turned a shade darker than her hair, she snatched the ancient looking bill from Dean's hand and slammed it into her register drawer, ringing up his change like she was jack hammering a section of new road. "Seeing how it's Christmas Eve, I'm going to let you have your little tooth rotting hoodlum food, but I expect you to not set foot in this store again until you get a new attitude." She grabbed his wrist and dropped 50 cents worth of change in his hand. "You hear me?"

Dean closed his hand around the two quarters that were cold as ice in his palm, pocketing them into his jacket pocket a moment later. "Sure thing sweetheart." He picked up his items bagged in plastic, lopping them through his left arm, throwing a smile to the woman. She scowled at him as he left out the front glass door with an audible jingle of the bell overhead.

The snow was ankle deep and froze to his shoe laces as he broke a path through the whiteness across the street to the motel with the truck stop attached to the end of it with bright halogen bulbs that bounced almost blindingly off of the snow. He plodded up to the door marked with a rusted gold metal '5' and knocked three times in with quick, light taps. There came the sound of the chain latch being slid off, the deadbolt was released and the door opened a moment later.

"You don't open the door until you're sure it's me dofus," Dean pushed his way past his 11-year-old brother in a gray shirt red and black plaid pj bottoms.

"Who else would use the secret knock?" Sam returned with his 'exasperated 11-year-old' voice, closing the door and redoing the locks as well as the salt line on the floor.

The motel is dingy, mustard yellow walls, a latticed white partition that looked like it was covered in 80 years' worth of dust. In the corner of the room sat a plastic Christmas tree. It was skinny and tall with two rows of missing branches, almost bowed over from weight of a notebook paper chain and a single string of lights that hung in the middle of the branches like it had been flung there and had gotten stuck. Dean had found the tree abandoned by the dumpster two nights ago and had dragged it to the motel and plugged it in, and, it actually worked, and the smell of stale beer and old pizza had all but disappeared from it by now.

"What if I were a shape shifter?" Dean's sneakers left puddles of melted snow on the carpet. He walked over to the round unpainted kitchenette table and started to unload the items from the bag: a box of Twix cereal, a can of potato soup, a loaf of bread, a red carton of Borden milk with the smiling cow.

"I have my knife," Sam padded to the bed in white socked feet where a spreading of books and a spiraled notebook lay open next to a number two pencil whittled down to half its size from Sam's constant sharpening.

"Where?" Dean surveyed Sam's clothes, noting the absence of any places to conceal things. "You don't have pockets."

"It's right here," Sam sat next to his book pile and pointed out to the sheathed pure silver switchblade lying beside a Pre-Algebra text book.

"Dude," Dean growled, abandoning the groceries and stomping over to the bed. "You need to keep this on you," He jerked Sam's hand from off his pencil and slapped the knife into it. "Monsters aren't going to wait for you to finish your homework and grab your knife before they eat your face off."

"Dean I'm eleven, I'm not stupid." Sam snapped in annoyance, letting the knife fall out of his hand like a rejected skimming rock back into the river. He eyed the meager assortment of groceries spread that looked as bare as sad as their Christmas tree. "That's all you got? What are we supposed to eat for dinner?"

"There's still a few Big Mac's in the fridge," Dean nodded towards the rust stained fridge that sat next to a particle board counter with a single welled sink and a hot plate with exposed wires.

"You ate off both of them," Sam complained.

"So?" Dean said like that wasn't a big deal. "I don't have cooties."

Sam made a face. "I don't want a half-eaten Big Mac for Christmas Dean!"

"You know some kids aren't as fortunate as us to afford Big Mac's Sam." Dean said using his 'wise voice'

"You didn't pay for them-" Sam shifted on the bed, facing Dean head on, making his pencil roll towards his knee like a log down a ravine. "You stole them when that cashier wasn't looking, I saw you!"

"Okay, don't chick whine Sammy," Dean returned. "Here-" He snatched up the Snoball packages and pitched them at Sam one at a time like baseballs. "You can add some Vitamin Sugar to your burgers."

Sam caught both packages, looking at the pastries with a look of happiness that he couldn't hide. Snoballs were his absolute favorite junk food, but they didn't sell them all year or at all of the states they traveled to. So whenever Sam saw them at the store, he would always buy a few packages. Except last week when their dad caught him biting into one outside of the 7-11 in Spokane, and snatched the package from him, telling him that it was "toxic garbage" and extra fat would slow him down in a hunt. He grabbed the half eaten Snoball as well as the unopened package Sam had in the plastic shopping bag in his hand, throwing them into the over flowing trashcan at the side of the mini mart.

A group of teenage boys had walked up to the 7-11, obviously having seen what happened because they called out: "No more fat cakes for your fat head?" They laughed riotously before the whole herd of them disappeared into the store with a jingle of a bell.

John had said nothing, and Sam's face had burned red with shame, eyes glazed over with tears in the late afternoon light, forcing them in because it would just be something else for his dad to bitch at him about.

He had turned to face the store entrance, waiting for Dean to come back out. Which his brother did a few minuts later, taking a pull from an enormous cherry Slurpee. Dean had taken one look at Sam's face, jaw clenched, hands tight down by his side, glanced from his dad to Sam and asked his brother: "What's going on?"

John had snatched Dean's Slurpee out of his hand like it was a live bomb and shoved it into the trash with the Snoballs.

Dean's exclamation of "What the hell dad?" had earned him a:

"Get in the car, we're losing good driving hours!" from John and their father had left after that leaving his two sons to follow him to their car.

Once their dad had been out of earshot, Dean turned to his brother with a: "Sammy what?"

Sam just shook his head with a: "Nothing," itching at his eye with the inside of his elbow and walked to where the Impala was parked next to a gas pump.

Dean finally got it out of Sam what happened after their dad had dropped them off in their current hotel to track down a Rugaru. He told Sam that dad didn't mean it, he was just "in one of his moods", and offered to "beat the shit" out of those guys at the 7-11. Sam had given a halfhearted laugh, and said it was fine.

The matter was dropped after that. Until tonight that was, when Dean saw the Snoballs at the convenient store counter and immediately snatched them up for his brother.

Sam's happiness over getting the snack cakes lasted for half a second before his face fell away into a realism that no 11-yeaer-old should have worn. "Dean, I can't take these-" He pushed them away on the bed like they would detonate.

"It's cold outside," Dean cut in. "A few extra pounds will give you great insulation for long treks." He said it with enough of a light hearted inflection that Sam would know it was meant to be a joke.

"I don't like them anymore." Sam argued.

Dean snorted. "Since when?"

"Dad said-"

"Dad was an asshole Sam!" Dean cut in, watching Sam's eyes go wide at the words Dean said about their father. Dean cursed on a daily basis, but never openly about their dad. Whenever he was around, it was always: "Yes Sir," and "No Sir."

Dean abandoned the groceries yet again, and crossed over to Sam's bed. He sat on the edge of it, picking up the Snoballs and laying them against one denim clad knee.

Sam stared at his feet, twirling the pencil around in between his hands with his fingers.

"He shouldn't have said those things-" Dean dumped the packages on Sam's knees. "Just take'em, alright? I had to go through a harpy of a woman to get them for you."

Sam's solemn look cracked into a shrug of a smile. He abandoned his pencil and picked up one of one of the packages, turning his gaze up to his brother: "Thanks Dean."

"Don't say I never got you anything for Christmas." Dean returned.

Sam squeezed the top of the package and it opened with a 'pop'. He pulled out one of the Snoballs and bit into it, pink sugar and chocolate crumbs trailed down his lips and puffed out cheeks. "Want one?" He said it around a mouthful, holding out the package to Dean.

"Pink is for girls," Dean said simply.

"Shut up," Sam said around a swallow, shoving Dean backwards onto his homework. A ream of notebook paper with neat algebraic equations scattered to the threadbare carpet.

"Like I said," Dean said from where he was squashing the cover of Sam's text book, a smug smile on his face. "Pink is for girls; you're fighting skills prove it."

Sam reached over and punched Dean in the right arm.

Dean grunted in pain; swearing at the force Sam had used. He shook out his arm and sat up watching Sam tumble like a gymnast upside down on his bed, yanking at something from in between the mattresses.

"Dude, what are doing?" Dean stared at his brother in confusion and continued to rub at his arm.

Sam flipped himself back up and was now holding out a small, rectangular package wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. He held it out to Dean. "This is for you."

"Open it," Sam pressed the newspaper at him when Dean didn't make a move to take it.

Dean finally came out of his daze and took the package, pulling off the carefully scotch tapped newspaper. The newspaper came away to reveal a black covered cassette tape; a Single; with the title written in white letter on the front:

Hey Jude

The Beatles

Dean held the tape in his hand like he couldn't believe it to be there. He flipped open the plastic case and pulled out the black cassette inside. "Where'd you get this?" He looked up from the cassette to Sam in bafflement.

"Some lady in those apartments across the street was having a yard sale." Sam answered, he leaned over Dean's shoulder's and studied the tape. "That's the song mom used to sing to you right?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, it's," he found it hard to speak for a moment, he held onto the tape like it was made of gold. "This is great Sam, I love it," he set a hand on Sam's shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

Sam smiled, pleased, and something else genuine. "Merry Christmas Dean."

Dean took the opened package of Snoballs and handed one to Sam. "Merry Christmas Sammy."

xxxxxXxxxx

2013

The bell above the door jingled, blasting in the snow in miniature blizzards around the man's feet.

"Close that dang door!"

Dean's head snapped up at the sound of the voice and he caught the sight of a flash of orange in a Christmas sweater behind the counter.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Dean started at the woman at the casher's counter in the gas station, with the exception of a few more gray streaks in the orange hair, she hadn't age in 19 years. And apparently she actually liked working the third shift at a mini mart in Bainbridge.

"There something I can help you son?" The woman's voice called over to where he was standing next to an ancient looking Slurpee machine and a display for Formula grade motor oil.

"Yeah," Dean walked up to the counter, his boots damp from the snow. "I'd like a fill on pump five."

"How much?" The woman still had the same old cash register, and its buttons seemed to cry out as she punched them.

"40," Dean returned with a bit of a grimace at the dent filling Baby up put in his wallet, which he pulled out of the back pocket of his jeans.

"Cash or credit?" She stared at him over her glasses that were as black as they were in 1994, like she had been painting them with nail polish this entire time to keep them looking like that.

"Cash or credit?"

"Cash." Dean returned.

"Anything else?"

Dean looked over the counter, around racks of National Enquirer proclaiming the Pope to have fostered Godzilla babies, 5-Hour Energy in little orange bottles, single red roses in plastic for $3.50, and found a row of bright pink. He smiled. "Yeah," Dean snatched up a handful of the Hostess snack cakes and dumped them in front of the woman.

The woman glared at him over her glasses, like she was going to reprimand a grown man for eating so much sugar. But before she could, the bell chimed again, and years of ingrained instinct of needing to know what crept up behind him had Dean turned around a second later.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dean proclaimed watching Sam, limp inside on a set of army grade aluminum crutches and an ace bandage wrapped around the field splinted broken four toes on his left foot that, not three days ago, had been in the jaws of a Lalepas, a mythological Greek dog with bad breath and one hell of a bad disposition.

Dean abandoned all the Snoballs at the counter and walked over to his brother, who was trying to maneuver through aisles that would've been too small for him normally but with the added hindrance of crutches it was like a puppy trying to walk in skies. "Dude, I told you to wait in the car."

"Yeah well I was getting cramped sitting down," Sam returned, balancing on one crutch to stretch out his right arm, almost sending half of the cans on the top shelf beside him to the ground, but his dexterity from hunting kicked in and he managed to grab the cans of tomato paste and right them before they made a colossal mess.

Dean just scowled irritated at him. "Man, you better not have broken anything off," Dean crouched down and started to inspect Sam's foot, poking at it like he was checking the texture of bread dough.

"Dude," Sam insisted with a grimace trying to yank his foot back and not fall over like a Weeble at the same time. "They're attached!"

"Quit whining you baby," Dean insisted. "You don't listen to me, you get the once over."

"Are you going to buy this mountain of tooth decay son, or do I have to get the sheriff in here for loitering?"

Dean's head turned up to the orange haired woman who was watching him with her harpy scowl. "Yes ma'am," Dean stood back up, righting his brother in the process, and walked back over to the counter. Sam followed behind him with clunking sounds of his crutches.

When they both made it to the counter the woman stared at both of them like she wanted to have them fitted for either white or orange jump suits. "That'll be $44.50."

Dean pulled out a 50 dollar bill. "Keep the change."

"Can't take anything larger than a 20," She returned. "Too many little boys trying to steal things around here you know."

Dean gave her a look laughing a moment to himself. "Yes ma'am, I do." He took the 50 from her and turned to Sam. "You got a five?"

"Yeah," Sam leaned on one crutch and pulled a 5 from his wallet, handing it to Dean.

Dean took it and added it to two twenty's, handing it all to the cashier. "Keep the change."

The woman shot him a look and handed him back two quarters, bagging up all his Snoballs. She looked over at Sam. "What happened to you kid?"

"Sledding accident," Dean answered for Sam. "Trees." He made a 'this big' motion with his hand. "It was painfully spectacular." He looked over at Sam who cleared his throat with a: "dude, seriously?" look.

The cashier's gruff expression somewhat melted off her face, and an almost smile took its place. "My husband and I used to ski every winter; next town over has a ski lodge up in the mountains. We never had any children so it was always just us at Christmas. Then one time this group of teenage boys were staying there on some school chartered trip, and two of them stole Maurice's wallet out in the parking lot. He tried to pull it away from them, but he slipped on some snow and hit his head," her words tapered off. "He died the next day, doctors' called it: "intracranial hemorrhage."

Sam's expression became sympathetic. "I'm really sorry that happened."

She nodded, eyes downcast before she found Sam and Dean's again. "That was in 1992. Haven't been back there since. I took this job a few months later, offered to work all holiday shifts, never knew just why, I started hating kids after, particularly boys, and they always seemed to come in here in drones, like locusts. Always breaking stuff, and being too loud. I probably was meaner then I should have been- I know they all hated me-" she laughed for a moment, but then dug at her eyes with hands that were leathery and cracked from years of cleaning and stocking shelves.

"It's not your fault," Dean said to her and her eyes took on a startled look. "It's not easy losing someone, especially when it's pointless. Kind of thing you can't just smile and pretend away." He caught sight of Sam glancing at him from the corner of his eye at what he said. "And you were right, nobody's daddies teach manners anymore."

She raised her glasses up off the bridge of her nose and really looked at Dean over the fuzzy brown reindeer dancing on her sweater. "Do I know you?"

"No ma'am," Dean returned. "It just took 15 years to realize that went both ways." Dean picked up the plastic bag, giving a sincere nod to the cashier. "Have a good night."

He walked a few steps and turned back around, waiting for Sam to catch up to him, seeing the woman watching him as Sam limp passed him on his crutches. He returned the gaze for a moment before turning to grab the door.

The cold snowy night bit at them under a spray of stars in inky blackness, the concrete under them dipped into a decline. Sam followed Dean down it until it leveled out into to a concrete slab where gas pumps were lined up straight as soldiers.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing," Dean returned over his shoulder, walking to where the Impala was parked at the back gas pump in the center row. The air smelled like gas and stale chips.

Sam didn't believe him. "You sure about that?"

"Dude, I said it's nothing," Dean returned, opening the gas tank to the Impala and sticking the station nozzle inside.

"Dean c'mon man, you can tell me-"

"There's nothing to tell Sam."

"Dean-"

"Look-," Dean rounded the car to where Sam's much taller frame was perched, half leaning on one crutch, half against the passenger side of the Impala. "Just-" He pulled out one of the packs of Snoballs and pressed it against his brother's chest. "Merry Christmas Sammy, alright?"

Sam stared at the package for a moment, up at his brother, his hand around the Snoballs. "Yeah, Merry Christmas man."

Dean slapped Sam on the front of his shoulder with a deliberate slowness before he went back around to the gas pump.

Sam pulled the Snoball packed away from his body and stared at it. He hadn't eaten these things in about 10 years, having long since given up on processed sugar as part of his meal plans. But, holding them now he could remember clearly when he did. He cast his eyes up to his brother in the glow of the lights overhead and the cold air blowing around them in the snowy darkness.

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End.

I took some liberties in that "Zeke" didn't heal Sam after being attacked, but I wanted Sam on crutches, and Zeke is a little shady as we all know now, so it could work.

Merry Christmas everyone.

~Mystic