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Sam lies sprawled on his stomach across his bed, his science textbook open under his folded arms. He’s been perched here in the same position for the past two hours, Bones passed out width-wise with his big, golden head resting heavy against the small of Sam’s back. The tiny words on the page are starting to blur together and Sam rubs at his eyes, forcing himself to focus. Just one more chapter and he can give himself a break to read and answer Jo’s latest letter, which is lying open on his desk, begging for his attention. He spends a lot of time living vicariously through Jo these days, jealous that she gets to be in Alaska helping her mom train for the Iditarod while he’s stuck here with a drunk for a dad and nothing but his studies and piles of library books to keep him busy.
On the other side of the room, Dean’s bed is empty, made with military precision and untouched since Dean had gotten up this morning. Judging by the muffled voices filtering through the closed door, Dean is in the kitchen with Dad, and it sounds as though Dad getting ready to leave—whether for the bar or a late shift at the precinct Sam doesn’t know. He’s gone more often than he’s not, working long hours or drinking himself into a stupor and leaving Dean and Sam to fend for themselves.
Two sets of footsteps move towards the front door and even though Sam can’t make out the words clearly through their closed bedroom door, he knows what comes next. “Watch out for Sammy,” Dad will say, and Dean will say, “Yes, Sir,” and he’ll mean it too, because he always does. Sure enough, there’s Dad’s deep rumble, followed by Dean’s gruff reply, the sound making Sam smirk. Dean thinks he’s some big tough man ever since his voice broke, but it still goes in and out on him at inconvenient times, cracking when he gets worked up which Sam thinks is freaking hilarious.
Sam hears the door of their little house creak open and slam firmly closed as Dad steps out. One pair of footsteps turns away from the entryway, growing louder as they move down the short hallway and then—
“Hey Sammy.” The door to their shared bedroom pushes open and Dean pokes his head around it to peer inside. “Whatcha doin’? Still studying?”
“You say that like I don’t have a huge test this week,” Sam says as his brother crosses the sparse bedroom to sit down beside Sam’s elbow, reaching to pat Bones on the head. Bones doesn’t get up or lift his head, but his tail beats happily against the mattress as Dean pets him.
“God you are such a geek,” Dean says, rolling his eyes. “Come outside with me, I gotta show you something.” He tugs the textbook out from under Sam’s arms, standing and holding it over his head when Sam makes a grab for it.
Sam glares up at his brother. “Dean! I need to study!”
Dean shakes his head, grinning, and takes another step back from the bed. “Uh uh, Sammy. You can study some more later. Right now you gotta come outside with me. C’mon buddy.” He waggles his eyebrows. “It’s snowing.”
Those are the magic words and Dean knows it because his face splits into a giant smirk as he says them. Sam rolls his eyes and clambers off the bed, Bones following at his heels. “Fine,” he sighs. “But just for a little while. I have to study some more tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Dean chuckles, reaching up to ruffle Sam’s hair and dodging the swat Sam aims in his direction. “It’s hours until your bedtime, Sam. You’ll have plenty of time after it gets dark.”
Dean makes him dress up in all his snow gear, and by the time they make it out into the backyard, Sam’s filled with foreboding. He wonders if Dean is planning an ambush, if he’s going to start pelting Sam with snowballs the second they round the corner of the house. Fat snowflakes are drifting down from a whited-out sky, and the ground is already draped in a thin blanket of white. Sam looks up, sticking out his tongue to catch one of the flakes, a pinprick of cold dissolving into nothing as it lands. One of them catches on his eyelashes, sparkling in his vision until it melts away.
Thankfully, Dean doesn’t reach for a snowball or tackle him into the snow. Instead, he leads them out to the garage, holding the door open for Sam and Bones who follows his owner dutifully into the building. The car is gone of course, and Dean leads him around a pile of misshapen boxes to a hidden corner of the garage.
Hiding behind the boxes there’s a shapeless lump, covered by a worn orange tarp weighed down by dented tomato soup cans. Sam’s brow furrows; he doesn’t remember having seen anything like this in here before.
“Dean what—” he starts but Dean is already ducking down and moving the cans, stacking them off to one side of Dad’s long-unused workbench and whipping the tarp aside with a flourish.
“Ta da,” Dean says with a grin.
Sam’s mouth gapes open as he stares. A dog sled. A brand new, handmade, varnished-shiny dog sled. He’s seen tons just like this in the books he’s been reading and the pictures Jo sends him—lightweight wooden construction with rubber footrests and a metal claw that serves as the brake—but he can’t imagine what one is doing here, in their garage.
"What the—where did that come from?"
"Made it," Dean says with a shrug, shuffling a hand through the short strands of his hair.
Sam’s mouth falls open, his eyes widening in disbelief. "You made this?"
Dean rolls his eyes, flushing under the scattering of freckles across his cheeks. "Calm down, man, it's not like it’s some feat of engineering. I just found some plans in one of those books you brought home from the library."
Sam runs small, skinny hands over the handlebar, which Dean has lovingly wrapped in black hockey tape, the edges of the tape smooth and even. He can't even believe it. Sam had begged Dad for a sled on more than one occasion, ever since Jo’s first letter bragging about the one she got from Ellen for her birthday two years ago. Of course, John’s answer had been a “no” back then and every time since, until Sam had finally given up asking, making do with the downhill sled they’d had since Dean was younger than Sam is now.
But now he’d never have to have Bones drag him along on his sucky toboggan again. Sam finally has his own sled, not to mention the best big brother in the whole world.
“I couldn't get the handlebar smooth so I had to tape it," Dean is saying, rubbing at the back of his flushed neck. "Don't wanna listen to you whine if you get a splinter."
Sam ignores the jibe, turning to hug his brother hard. "Thanks, Dean!" He's still so short, hasn't had a growth spurt yet, so his face presses into Dean's stomach, but he doesn't care.
Dean pulls away first and Sam lets him go, picking up the harness that lies slung across the basket. "Bones, c'mere," he says, patting his leg, and the big golden retriever wags his plumed tail and pads to his owner's side. Sam tugs the harness over the dog’s head, managing somehow, with Dean's help to pull the reluctant dog's feet through the spaces in the harness’ webbing. It fits perfectly, the royal blue standing out bright and cheerful against Bones' reddish-gold fur.
“Did you measure him for this?”
“Yeah. Called Ellen and she gave me the number of the place she orders from so I could get it and the lines. Is it okay?”
“It’s perfect,” Sam says, and it is, the loop of the harness falling right where it should at the base of Bones’ wagging tail. Sam looks up at Dean, beaming. "Can we try it now?"
Dean snorts, reaching down to ruffle Sam's hair and dodging his retaliatory swat. "Duh," Dean says. "Why d'you think I dragged you out here in the first place?"
He hands Sam the gangline he'd purchased—no doubt with some of the money he earned helping out Caleb at the hardware store—and hefts the sled onto his shoulder. Sam holds the door for him, ushering Bones out before them, and they head to the park around the corner, where a thin layer of new snow is coating the frozen ground. Dean sets the sled down and Sam hooks it up, clipping the brand new gangline to the loop at the end of Bones' harness. He looks up at Dean, only to find his big brother watching him, expectant, arms crossed over his chest.
"Well? You gonna try it or what? I didn't pour my blood, sweat and tears into that thing just for you and your dumb dog to stand around it lookin’ pretty."
Sam grins and rushes around to stand on the runners, pausing and giggling when Bones tries to follow him back. Dean has to stand at the front and hold Bones' harness to keep him facing in the right direction. Sam calls "hike!" like all the books tell him to do but Bones just kind of wags his tail and looks over his shoulder at him with an expression on his face like Sam is speaking in Greek—which he guesses, to Bones, he might as well be.
"C'mon Bones," Dean says, bending a little at the waist and clapping his hands in the dog's face. Bones' tail wags harder and he takes one step towards Dean—sideways, not forwards.
"Jesus," Dean grumbles. "Sam, your dog's a dud."
"Give him a break, he's never done this properly before!" Sam calls. "You have to encourage him."
Dean rolls his eyes and claps his hands again, taking a few steps forward. "Let's go, Bones," he calls, and the dog follows him, looking back in surprise as he feels the weight of the sled and Sam, standing on the runners. The sled moves one sluggish foot across the snow, the line going slack between the dog and the sled as it stops again.
"Good boy, Bones!" Dean starts running backwards now. "C’mon buddy!"
Bones wags his tail and pulls again, chasing after Dean. Sam is still small and the sled is light, and it finally starts moving properly as the dog gets the hang of it and picks up speed, the waxed wooden runners slipping easily over the fluffy, newly-fallen snow.
"It's working, Dean, keep running!"
"Good boy, Bones, good boy!" Dean turns and starts full-out running, his unzipped coat flapping behind him, and Bones breaks into an enthusiastic gallop, tongue lolling happily out of his mouth as he follows.
A joyful laugh bursts from Sam's lips. "Hike!" he yells and even though Bones doesn't have a clue what the word means he runs faster, chasing Dean across the frozen field.
They follow Dean over the snow-covered grass for ten minutes, leaving twin lines of runner tracks in the freshly-fallen snow as they go. Finally Dean groans and keels over, gasping, in the snow, and Bones jumps right on top of him, slathering his face in disgusting dog kisses as Dean gasps for breath, swatting half-heartedly at the big golden retriever until he quits.
"I did not sign up for that kind of exercise, Sammy," Dean says, pushing himself to his feet and brushing the snow off his jeans. "I hope you’re happy."
Sam throws himself into another hug, feeling Dean's arms come around his shoulders again. He puts as much feeling as he thinks he can into the hug, holding Dean as tight as he dares so that Dean will know exactly how much this means to him. He’s been jealous of Jo for so long, and now he finally has his own sled and it’s the start of a dream come true. Embarrassingly, he feels his eyes sting with tears, and he sniffs them away before his big brother notices and gets uncomfortable or decides to tease him about it.
“I’m so happy,” Sam says, his voice wobbling traitorously. “Thanks, Dean. This is great.”
Dean squeezes him tight around the shoulders once, then pushes him away gently. “All right, all right get off me.” He slumps over to a nearby bench and flops over onto it dramatically. “Well, you gonna mush or what?”
Sam grins, and curls his gloved fingers around the handlebar again. “Hike!” he calls to Bones and starts running behind the sled as Bones takes off through the thin snow.
“And stay off the road!” he hears Dean call after him, a smile in his voice.
Sam just laughs giddily and runs faster.