A/N: I wanted to write something happy for Christmas, I really did. We'll see how it goes.
Warning: Mild gore and swearing
Sam stopped believing in Santa Claus when he was six years old. Rather, it wasn't so much that Sam stopped believing than Dean got tired of pretending.
It had been another Christmas of John's false promises and Dean was pissed. He knew the hunt was important, but John had drilled into his head that family was the most important thing a person could have and wasn't Christmas supposed to be about spending time with family? Sam was colouring something at the small table whilst Dean silently fumed on his bed.
"Dean? When's Dad coming back?"
"He's not."
Sam pouted. "But he promised."
"Yeah, well, he changed his mind," Dean replied irritably.
"Why?"
"Because he got tired of you." It was the wrong thing to say. Sam put down his crayons and turned to Dean with tears glimmering in his hazel eyes.
"If I've been bad enough to keep Dad away, does that mean Santa won't come tonight?"
Dean snapped. "Santa isn't real, Sam! He's just made up so dumb kids like you have something to look forward to at Christmas."
"But Dad said-"
"Dad says a lot of things. Doesn't make them true." A moment of silence followed and Dean regretted his outburst. He had taken his anger at John out on Sam and the kid didn't deserve it, but Dean was just so angry and-
"Dean?" Dean sat up and stared at his brother. Sam wore a look of determination and he held a piece of paper tightly in his right hand. He thrust the paper at Dean. "This was for Dad, but I want you to have it."
Dean looked down at the drawing. It was messy, but the part Dean noticed was the writing at the top. It had obviously meant to say Merry Christmas Dad, but Sam had squeezed an e between the D and the a and the last letter was crossed out to make way for an n. Dean smiled at his little brother.
"Thank you, Sam. It's great." Sam beamed and jumped up at Dean, wrapping his small arms around the older boy's neck. Dean laughed and pulled Sam close.
"Merry Christmas, Dean."
"Merry Christmas, Sammy."
Once Sam had learned the truth about the family business, they always spent Christmas together. Problem was, they usually spent them ankle deep in grave dirt, or on the road to another dingy town, or patching up injuries in some drab motel. Sam would stare longingly at the bright decorations and families going Christmas shopping and he would wish that, just once, they could be like they were. Happy and peaceful and blissfully ignorant of the things that stir in the shadows.
Dean would argue that they did Christmas every year, but Sam wouldn't agree. Christmas to him was a turkey dinner and presents under a tree and being a normal family together for just one day. Christmas to the Winchesters was takeout from the nearest greasy diner and maybe an old movie on an even older TV.
The first Christmas away from his family at Stanford was nothing to shout home about. Sam spent most of Christmas Eve huddled in the corner of a bar sipping at his drink and occasionally breaking up fights between an increasingly drunk Brady and some other guy Sam didn't know. He was still the freaky new kid that nobody wanted to be caught hanging around. Christmas Day was no better; Sam had hoped that Dean might call but his phone remained annoyingly silent and he couldn't muster up the courage to do it himself.
The second Christmas went much better though. He had begun to feel like he was really fitting in at Stanford and he had made a few friends. At some point in the evening Brady had stumbled up to him with a pretty blonde under his arm.
"Sam!" he called far too loudly, his voice slightly slurred. "This is Jessica. Thought you two might wanna meet."
Brady might have said more, but if he did Sam didn't hear him. He felt a blush creeping up his cheeks as he realised he'd been staring at Jessica for too long and quickly looked away, scratching the back of his head nervously. She had laughed and grabbed his arm, dragging him to a quieter corner where they could talk. They had spent the next Christmas in the exact same corner, for nostalgia's sake, except that time there was a lot less talking.
Dean had wanted to celebrate Christmas that first year they were back together but Sam couldn't find it in him. Jess had been dead for a little over a month and the pain of her passing was still so raw. He still had what would have been her Christmas present carefully stored away in his duffel and he took it out that night after Dean had gone to bed. The diamond glittered in the pale moonlight and Sam clutched the little velvet box tightly in his hand as he cried himself to sleep.
They didn't even try the next year because Dad's death and the weight of what he had told Dean were bearing down on both of them and they hung over the boys like a shadow. Neither one had mentioned Christmas and it passed uneventfully, each brother dealing with their grief and guilt in their own way.
It felt like the universe was playing a cruel trick on them when their first proper Christmas together was also Dean's last. Sam had tried to dissuade Dean from the idea at first because he wasn't sure he could deal with another Christmas that had a loved one's death surrounding it. He gave in eventually because he'd be damned if Dean spent his last Christmas miserable because of him so he pasted on a smile and tried to pretend like every second wasn't killing him.
Sam spent 180 Christmases in Hell. He lost track of time quickly after his fall (time was different in Hell anyway) because each day was the same. Torture. Pain. Scream. Repeat. There was no definable day or night and Sam never slept anyway, Lucifer made sure of that, so it just became one long nightmare. Lucifer, however, he knew. Every Christmas he would decorate the Cage in macabre parodies of Christmas decorations with guts (sometimes Sam's) as tinsel and bloody chunks of flesh as baubles. If he was in a particularly festive mood he would strap Michael to the ceiling and call him the angel at the top of the tree.
"Well, Sam," he would say. "Have we been good this year?"
"Ah, that's too bad. I guess this requires a special punishment. Let's see... How about we start with the cat o' nine tails, then we'll move onto the cold cell and, as a special treat, we'll finish up with the Catherine wheel. I'll even provide the carolling. Sound fun? I thought so too."
All in all, Sam's never had much luck with Christmas. There was always something - Jess's death, Dad's, Hell, angels, demons - that stopped them from actually sitting down and just being brothers for one day. Maybe Sam had given up on his feeble hope of being normal, but he still couldn't help but wish that they could be like everyone else, even if it was just for Christmas. That year, his finger had hovered over Mom's contact in his phone but, just like all those years ago at Stanford, he couldn't bring himself to make the call. So when she had called hours later asking if she could come home for Christmas, he had immediately accepted. Maybe this year would be it. Maybe this year, despite Dad being gone, despite all their problems in the past, they could be a family.
A/N: If anyone doesn't know, cold torture is blasting someone with freezing cold air (generally from AC). All the tortures I mentioned were actual tortures that have been used in the past (with the exception of Lucifer's carolling!) Well, I think that ended pretty happily. What do you guys think? I hope you enjoyed and, if you have a minute, please drop me a review! Merry Christmas!