Author's Note: This was my Day 6 offering to hekat1308 for the "All I Want for Christmas is Drowley" exchange on tumblr. This one was inspired by the suggested prompt for the day "Christmas Lights." Takes place in some amorphous time post-S12 and S13 where Crowley has been resurrected as a human.
Hope you all enjoy!
There is nothing all that special about the day that Dean Winchester realizes he's in love with Crowley.
The former King of Hell has been back amongst the living - a newly minted human (or more like a reissued human, Dean guesses, since this his second go at the whole mortality thing) for all of five months when the epiphany occurs.
It's late June, and the summer solstice is upon them, and with it an uptick in monster activity all over the midwest. The overactivity means that their merry little band of hunters has scattered off in pairs to cover the most miles, and prevent the most damage.
Sam's off in North Dakota with their Mom handling a rogue werewolf (child's play). Cas and Jack have the succubus in Ohio covered (there's not enough bleach in the world to erase the incredibly detailed birds and bees conversation he was forced to participate in with the nephilim before the two set off - nowhere near enough). Which leaves Dean and Crowley in Iowa to address the most recent bout of shapeshifter nonsense.
It should be a milk run for the two. They handle worse on the daily.
But because fate is a jackass, something goes wrong, and Crowley gets injured.
The flash of fear spiked rage that courses through Dean isn't all that surprising. Crowley has long since been incorporated into the portions of Dean's brain, heart, and soul that focus exclusively on keeping his family safe.
No, what's surprising is that during the approximately one minute and forty-five seconds that it takes for Dean to eliminate the threat and skid to Crowley's side to revive him, the one coherent thought that manages to break through his regular internal repetitive loop of 'No! Damn it! Don't you die on me again you son of a bitch!' is:
He's going to die again, and you never told him.
When Crowley comes to, he coughs up a sickening amount of blood, but he's breathing, which is the important thing.
Dean helps him to his feet, keeping him steady with an arm wrapped around the wide part of his back, one of Crowley's arms wrapped over Dean's shoulder for support.
Dean settles him down in the back of the Impala for the drive back, despite not liking how it makes it almost impossible for Dean to keep an eye on him, though he can hear him breathing well enough.
He keeps the radio off. Making the drive back a silent one. Yet, for some reason, the absence of one three-word sentence in particular digs at Dean more than anything else.
The summer solstice passes, and the season bleeds away into fall, and though Dean and Crowley have many a conversation during that time, that sentence still doesn't pass Dean's lips. And because Dean is Dean, he doesn't do anything about the underlying emotions either.
The world spins on.
In fact, by the time Dean thinks he may finally be ready to do or say something, the world has spun around enough times that it's made it to the winter solstice and it looks like the ghost of 1950s Christmas has vomited up all over the bunker, courtesy of a Sam and Cas enabled Jack, who'd uncovered a loot box of decorations in the bowels of the bunker. The three ended up spending the prior week puttering around like a trio of deranged elves, hanging garland and mistletoe as far as the eye could see. All of it topped off with an electrical fire waiting to happen in the form of ancient Christmas string lights.
Still, despite the absolute death trap they've made out of the place, Dean has to admit that it does look festive. And, as always, he finds that it's hard to be in anything but a cheery mood when you're surrounded by twinkle lights, even if the bulbs dangling from the fraying strains are the size of mice, and the twinkling seems less like a feature and more like a sign of impending doom.
He ends up strolling through the bunker, a weird little spring in his step, humming a tune under his breath that is absolutely not a Christmas carol. Shuddup.
His wandering leads him to the place that Crowley has stashed himself: the little lounge off the smaller research library. The former demon is sitting on the small couch (a settee Dean thinks it may be called), absently twirling a pencil as he stares down a stack of papers in his hand.
Dean leans in the doorway for several minutes, enjoying watching the other man work. When Crowley does lift his head to notice Dean, he offers him a soft smile.
It makes Dean's heart beat faster.
Dean smiles back, and asks what has Crowley so engrossed. When Crowley offers to show him, Dean doesn't hesitate to cross the distance to join Crowley where he seats, the small piece of furniture forcing their legs to press against one another.
Dean's still not ready to say the words that have been plaguing him for six months.
But he thinks, maybe he will be.
Soon.
~End