Author's Notes: Hello, my dears! Did you miss me? I've been reading and helping out with "Thunderstruck," by Mrstserc, the latest "episode" of the Before the Fall 'Verse (which you should read!), and now I'm getting to work on the background and planning for the next full episode, tentatively titled "For Whom The Bell Tolls," which I should be kicking off for us in a few days. Fair warning: it's going to be a doozy for our boys again. Until then, though. . . I have a gift for you! I'm giving our favorite family the Christmas they actually deserve, and a reprieve from my recreational torment. Thanks go once again to Mrstserc for proofing and inputting, and carefully monitoring to make sure I didn't angst all over them and actually laughing at all the things I found funny (because it's nice to know I'm as funny as I think I am).
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you enjoy, and please review!
...
It's just after dawn on Christmas morning, and Dean Winchester's been awake for hours. He never really had many 'Christmas mornings' the way normal kids do, but he remembered one - just one, and he felt like the other few had been stolen by his imperfect memory - before Mary died.
He'd dragged a bleary John from his bed at a time that barely qualified as morning. Seen his mother's sunny beatific face as she pointed out what Santa had brought, her hand resting on a gently rounded abdomen, in her fourth month of pregnancy. He'd wished for a baby brother (not a sister, because what was he supposed to do with a sister?) and a toy car that ran on its own track.
Still a little while left to go on the brother, but everything else was perfect.
Not even a year later Mary would be dead, and Sam would never believe in Santa Claus, and John was usually gone at Christmas, and Dean made ham sandwiches or nuked KFC leftovers and tried to give Christmas to his little brother
This is Castiel's first Christmas as a human. Dean may be going about it a bit more. . . unconventionally. . . than what he'd give anyone else, but he was damned sure going to make the holiday memorable for his angel.
"I may never move again."
He didn't wake Cas up with breakfast in bed, because he wasn't Martha frikkin' Stewart. Cas had enjoyed it thoroughly anyway, though, of that he was sure.
Castiel slurs something incomprehensible into the bed in response to the first real coherent thought between them in a while, and Dean grins lazily, freeing his arm from beneath himself and slinging it across Castiel's back. Fingers pressing into Cas's ribs, Dean tugs at the former angel lightly until he rolls over and curls into Dean's side, nuzzling his stubbled chin against Dean's neck and settling again.
He loves it when Cas is blissed out like this, all soft sighs and boneless lethargy, long blunt fingers drawing senseless patterns across Dean's skin that every once in a while Dean wonders if they didn't mean something after all. He never asks. He's fairly sure he already knows their meaning, and answers them with gentle kisses to Castiel's temple and slow caresses up his side, a language that was once as foreign to him as Enochian sigils but is still safer than saying it aloud. And okay, so maybe he does cuddle these days, but what were you supposed to do when your lover bashfully admitted that his Heaven was being curled up in bed with you in the afterglow. . . and literally meant his Heaven?
Some nights that fact made him possessive and smug, some days it terrified him how much Castiel had entwined his life into Dean's fucked up world, and some nights. . . well, he figured he had to top that first night between them and up the ante on that Heaven for Cas. And then there were the quiet times like this where he wonders if they weren't going to end up in each other's afterlife after all. But that sounds too much like 'soulmates' which sounds too much like 'love,' and he's not willing to think like that. Not yet. They've pissed off every major power in the world, between them, and Dean's lived enough to know the second he admits anything. . .
Everything he loves gets broken, or taken away from him, or leaves him, and he's not ready for Cas to join that list.
It's a moment before he notices that Cas has shifted to look at him, blue eyes intently searching his face, the faint creases of worry managing to etch their way back across Cas's fair skin, and it was too soon for that. Cas should be allowed a bit longer of Christmas contentment before having to face the rest of their frequently crappy lives.
Dean adopts his crooked grin again, leaning in the meager inches between them to steal a kiss that was more affectionate than sexual now, and pushes lightly at Cas's shoulder, untangling their limbs. "Up. C'mon. Sam's a freaky morning person, and the entire separate-cabins thing'll only keep him at bay for so long. Besides, you should take a shower."
"You should join me." Castiel counters, and it's a tempting offer. Very, very tempting. But it's Christmas morning and he still has more to get ready.
"Things to handle." Slapping Cas on the ass to get him moving earns Dean a faint glare, and his grin widens, cheerfully wicked. He offers the one thing he knows Castiel still desperately needs to make it through the early wakeup without turning into a shuffling monster they'd have to take down. "I'll have coffee ready by the time you get out?"
Castiel's needy groan of agreement almost makes him rethink the shower invitation.
No. He can't. They'd never get anything done. He reminds himself of that fact the entire time he watches Cas pad away, head propped on his hand and a leer on his lips. He reminds himself of it again, later, when a freshly showered Cas, dark hair wet and curled and flattened against his neck and temples watches him from the bedroom door with a raised eyebrow and a canted head, towel slung low around his hips.
"How did you manage to get the top of a tree into the cabin without me noticing?"
"You're distractible, and I'm just that good."
Pushing off of the doorway, Castiel pads barefoot across the cabin toward him, leaving wet footprints on the tile, and yeah maybe Dean's letting himself notice a bead of water tracing down the muscles of Cas's chest, over the prominent scars, then his flat stomach and down towards the line of the towel. When Cas reaches out, curling an arm around Dean's shoulder as he lightly cards his fingers through his hair, Dean crowds forward towards him, ready to say to hell with Christmas plans and back to bed. . . Only to have Cas's hand in his way. "Pine needles." He's holding them in his fingers indicatively, plucked from Dean's hair, and he watches Dean with a knowing look and the brightness of humor in his eyes again as he steps backwards smoothly. "You're covered in pine needles. I'm sorry, you were saying something . . . I was just distracted."
He just. . . Cas just. . . he did that on purpose.
". . . When did you become a tease?!" Dean splutters at Castiel's retreating back, and he can see Cas's shoulders shake with silent laughter. And it's good. Something warm and light seems to be curling in Dean's chest, and he is not going to put it under a microscope, he just knows it's good.
"You didn't make me coffee." Castiel retorts blandly, innocently, and the bedroom door closes behind him. And locks. As if Dean couldn't get a bedroom lock open in ten seconds flat. As if it wasn't more teasing, a red flag in front of a bull and he can feel himself moving towards the door before he figures it out.
. . . As if he was distractible enough to need a locked door to remind him of what he was up to.
"Damnit."
He grumbles under his breath the entire time at being the butt of jokes as he digs out the tin of coffee, but even that. . . it's good too. By the time coffee is done, Dean's conceding he might need a shower of his own after all. There's pine sap on his hands and the pine needles are falling from his hair to the nape of his neck and it itches. He may glare at Castiel a bit as he pushes the coffee mug into his hands when Cas deigns to grace him with his now fully-clothed presence, but it's an act and they both know it, and the coffee's still just how Cas likes it (as if Dean hadn't noticed him dumping indecent amounts of sugar into everything when he thought Dean and Sam weren't looking).
"Don't touch the tree until I'm back, don't go into the trunk of the Impala, and stay out of my bag."
Castiel hums his agreement, ignores the warning look that he's flashed to make sure he's not going to go dig around contrarily (he won't, but Dean would), and meanders toward the kitchen cradling his coffee like something precious.
Sam and Bobby are arriving by the time Dean's out of the shower. Tugging on his t-shirt, Dean steps towards the front window to watch them pull up, and draws back slightly as he realizes Castiel's just on the other side of the deep green curtain, half-perched on the low wooden railing of the porch with his back to the exterior wall of the cabin, a sliver of his profile visible through the mostly closed curtains.
"Merry Christmas." Cas greets his brother, as Sam unfolds his gangly frame from the shotgun seat of Bobby's van, and if he sounds like he's rehearsed the greeting. . . well, it was his first Christmas.
"Yeah." Sam responds, and there's a faint twinge to Sam's distracted voice that Dean recognizes, even muffled as it is through the cheap window. "Where's Dean? I think we may have a case in . . ."
"No."
Inside the cabin, Dean blinks. Outside the cabin, Sam blinks. Emerging from the driver's side of the van, Bobby tips his hat back and shoots an assessing look at the fallen angel who is calmly raising his coffee mug to his lips again, taking another slow pull of the caffeine he'd become dependent upon within his first weeks as a human.
". . .What do you mean, 'no'? Cas, there's something. . ."
"I'm sure 'there's something,' and I'm sure it will wait until tomorrow. Your brother is trying to give us a holiday, Sam." Resting his coffee mug on his knee, Cas cants his head, bird-like, at Sam. "You know he planned to do Christmas. You both do. Give him this, please. It's important to him."
It's the please that's significant, an earnest request rather than a demand. Dean's hands have stilled in buttoning up his flannel shirt, and he's waiting still and silent. It's Bobby's voice that answers, and Dean can hear the creak of the back door of the van opening as Bobby hauls a bag from the back. "It'll keep, Sam. C'mon, let's see what that fool of a brother of yours has gotten up to."
If Bobby had been given the opportunity when they were growing up, if John hadn't kept them away, Bobby would have at least tried to give these boys a Christmas every damned year. The clap of Bobby's hand against Castiel's shoulder as he passes to the door of the cabin sounds like acceptance and admission to the family, and though he can only see a sliver of Castiel through the glass, Dean sees the faint thankful curl of Cas's lips as he stretches his legs out along the split-log railing and continues drinking his coffee in the cold while the others go inside.
"You cut the top off of a tree!" Sam objects loudly and indignantly from the living room moments later, and Dean breaks away from watching Castiel unseen to finish buckling his belt, padding out to where his brother is standing with his hands on his hips and a look that crosses incredulity and fondness as he eyes at the too-bushy top of a pine, its bottom hacked off inexpertly (hey, you try sawing through a tree you're perched in the middle of sometime with numb hands in the cold) leaning askew against the rock fireplace of the hunting cabin, its bottom shoved into a cooking pot.
"Like we don't do a lot more collateral damage to everywhere we go than the top of one tree, Sammy." He wasn't even sure he was going to pretend he hadn't heard the conversation out front until he saw his brother's face. This entire ridiculous Christmas idea is as much for his little brother as for Cas, and it's not like Bobby's had a real holiday in ages either. They need this. They all need this. Everything's been stacked against them, and Dean knows what it's like to forget how to be happy or normal or. . . anything but a Hunter.
He remembers the gnawing emptiness Famine illustrated, and this. . . damnit, if this all goes the way he wants it to, maybe it'll fuel all four of them for a while, even through the rough times.
"Gotta say, boy, as decorations go this isn't one." Dropping his bag onto the forest green couch, Bobby sizes up Dean for the first time in months, as if making sure he hasn't grown an extra limb or two since Iowa. It's the first time Bobby's really seen him since watching him grieve over Castiel at Storm Lake, since he stumbled into a relationship with another man, almost half a year of phone conversations only. Dean didn't realize he was waiting for some sort of disapproval until Bobby claps him on the shoulder instead, half a hug, before pushing him towards the tree and his brother.
Nothing's changed. Bobby must see Dean relax, notes the sudden relieved grin, and huffs quietly as he walks towards the kitchen to put another case of beer in the fridge. "Idjit."
"We're gonna decorate it." Dean declares, and he doesn't care that it's a ridiculous dumbass idea, that they have no decorations, or that both his brother and his surrogate father snort at his enthusiasm in unison, as if they'd practiced it.
"Think you're supposed to do that before Christmas day, Dean."
"Yeah, well, since when do we ever do anything like we're supposed to."
…
An hour later, the tree is half-decorated with popcorn and bolts and wing-nuts on fishing line, the living room floor is covered in pine needles, Bobby's slouched in the arm chair nursing his second bottle of beer and mocking from a distance, and the boys are arguing over the tree while Castiel sits on the hearth alternating between watching them in confusion and concentrating with exaggerated intent on the fishing line in his hands and the bowl of popcorn at his side.
"It's supposed to be an angel at the top of the tree."
"No, it's supposed to be a star, Dean. And I think we've had our fill of angels."
"Cas is sitting right there, Sam."
"I didn't mean Cas. I'm not always thinking about Cas. You're the one who's in lo. . ."
"Fine, just try and make a damned star, bitch."
"You're the one holding the wire, jerk."
And maybe there was a bit of shoving, but it was all in good fun.
Until the poorly secured tree tips in its cooking pot, the fishing line breaks, and the treetop falls in a crash, throwing popcorn and bolts and pinecones and needles like shrapnel at all of them.
". . . Son of a bitch!"
…
Silver duct tape is almost festive. It winds around the base of the hacked-off and partially crushed treetop, securing it into the cooking pot, and two strips run around the pot and anchor it to the hearth.
By this point, Bobby's given up on trying to look like he's anything other than amused at the two idiots now fighting over it again, and he passes a bemused Castiel his own beer without looking at him, as they both sit watching the Winchester boys at work.
"Why the hell do people subject themselves to this?" Sam's arms are scratched up by pine needles to his elbows, sleeves rolled up. Dean's got pine sap on his fingers again, making them sticky and spreading the gluey substance onto the poorly shaped wire "star" in his hands as he passes it up to his brother, who has half disappeared into the bushy branches as he fumbles blindly with getting it to the top.
The height wasn't a problem, but the damned thing hasn't been carefully pruned into Christmas-tree shape and the branches spread too far to make reaching the top comfortable, or possible without half disappearing into it.
"It's tradition, Sammy."
"So's the running of the Bulls, but I'm not signing up for that, either! It's a dumbass tradition. Generational insanity."
"You both chase ghosts and monsters because it's tradition for your family." Castiel retorts, convinced he's taking Dean's side, but all it earns him is a glare from all three men in the room with him. He drinks his beer in a gulp and draws in on the couch, but within moments the potential conversational faux paus is forgotten.
Sam has tripped over one of the anchoring pieces of duct tape.
The entire tree falls, with both boys attempting to grab it to keep it upright, stripping several branches of their pine needles as the branches whip through their clutching hands, scattering them all over the floor.
Before the cursing can start again, while Bobby is slapping his knee cackling at their expressions, Castiel offers comment to the room at large that is far better received than his last.
". . .You know, Yule fires are traditional among many cultures."
…
The Winchesters are far better at making things burn than decorating them, it turns out.
…
Tapping their beer bottles together, the brothers collapse into their respective seats on either side of the angel on the couch, Dean flinging an arm casually around Castiel's shoulders and Sam stretching his legs out into the middle of the living room as the fire crackles. A hacksaw, a little bit of lighter fluid, closing the glass cover on the fireplace to keep the copious smoke going the right direction, and they were in business.
Then there was pie.
And ham and turkey deli-meat sandwiches, because fuck it all if he was going to try and cook them dinner too. But Dean did get a side salad ("rabbit food") for his brother and dumped it into a bowl, and thus Christmas Dinner was served.
For good measure, Dean also throws his stash of Sonic Drive-Thru peppermints onto the table. It wasn't candycanes, but they'd just have to deal.
"I feel like we should be making Cas watch Christmas movies."
The entire room vetoes the plan. Dean's family was a bunch of damned Grinches.
(Eventually they agree on Die Hard.)
…
". . . I'm not certain how incessant explosions are festive."
"Shut up, Cas."
"Think of it like fireworks." Sam explains helpfully, not nearly as engrossed in the movie as his brother, and passes the popcorn left over from the failed decorating experiment.
Bobby mutters something about their being idjits for not the first time today, tips his hat forward, crosses his arms, and leans back in his chair to doze until they're done.
…
They're doing everything backwards – the tree decorations on the day of, fireplace going in the morning, dinner before presents – but as screwy as it is, it's theirs and Dean's still enjoying himself. The winter sun is hanging low in the sky as he clambers down the front porch steps towards the Impala to retrieve his gifts, stopping at the bottom stair to look out over the snow-covered yard. The snow has been coming down steadily since the morning, and the world is a pristine white wonderland, from the trees to the mountains, and it still drifts down in lazy windswept spirals. If it kept going, they'd end up too snowed in to go hunting in the morning.
(It's probably the first time in years he's been okay with that idea. The warm feeling is stretching and twisting in his chest, and he's not going to put word to it, because he knows better.)
He's still leaning against the railing, watching the peaceful evening, when the door opens and closes again behind him. He knows before the arms slip around his waist who's joining him. Dean spent a few years disturbed by how well he knew when Castiel had entered a room, even when he was sleeping, even when he appeared out of nowhere. Over the past few months he's grown comfortable with it.
"You okay?" Castiel's voice is a quiet rumble, pitched low to not carry back into the house, and Dean can hear the worry he glimpsed that morning there in his voice again.
"Always seems a shame, now, you know. . ?" Dean tips his chin at the unbroken snowy landscape, wrapping his arms over Castiel's, across his stomach as the angel leans into him, chin on his shoulder. "Stomping through that. Funny, it was one of my favorite things as a kid, when we got snow and were somewhere we could enjoy it. Go throw yourself headlong into it, mark it up, make snow angels with Sammy."
He can feel the questioning head tilt now, without having to see it. Chuckling quietly, Dean breaks Castiel's grip around him, taking his wrist and dragging Cas beside him, down to the last step, their feet crunching and sinking into the shin-high snowdrift surrounding the porch.
Cas shivers, tucking his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket, and he's poised with one foot on the stair, the other in the snow, when Dean shoves him hard into the snowbank, tipping him off-balance.
Castiel's yelp of surprise is decidedly amusing, and remains so as Dean snickers at his expense . . . right up until Cas gets his hands free well enough to grab Dean by the ankle and haul him face-first into the snow beside him.
By the time their noise draws Sam and Bobby to the porch, the peaceful snowscape has been thoroughly marked up, Dean has Cas in a headlock and is rubbing snow into his hair, and they both look up guiltily as Sam clears his throat. "So, last I heard you were going to the car to get presents. I think you failed."
"Dean was teaching me how to make 'snow angels.'" Castiel supplies in a deadpan, and Bobby rolls his eyes, while Sam looks between his brother and his brother's now captive angel.
". . . He's doing it wrong." Sam eventually manages force out, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, voice somewhere between a laugh at their expense and a groan.
Dean's snowball to the face takes him by surprise, and his older brother pumps his fist in the air in victory while Sam scrapes slush out of his eyes. "Look, Cas. I've made an abominable snow-man, too!"
…
The introduction of Sam into the fight turns it into an all-out war. Alliances are made and broken. Snow flies by the fistful. Bobby, dragging over a chair from the porch, contributes to the chaos with a few targeted attacks while maintaining his complete innocence.
…
"I think my fingers are going to fall off." Castiel stares mournfully at his pruned and shaking hands as he holds them by the fire, teeth chattering. He'd already given them a highly detailed explanation of the signs of hypothermia, undoubtedly well-researched, while escaping inside. Dean takes pity on him eventually, and it doesn't feel awkward at all this time to take Cas's hands in his, calloused palms pressing cupped to Cas's knuckles, sharing his heat.
"Yeah, yeah. We know. You didn't have to deal with the elements before, we heard." His words are a direct contradiction to his actions, gruff and teasing, but he rubs his thumbs in soothing circles over the palms of Castiel's hands, bringing circulation back through them.
"You know, I'm cold too." Sam snipes, unable to get near the fire past them, and from across the room Bobby drawls mockingly.
"There is a limit to what I can deal with, Sam. Used to be cute when your brother'd hold your hand, but you're a bit too old for that now."
Cas goes utterly still again, in that way of his that wasn't quite human, and flicks his gaze up to Dean's as if checking to see if the teasing was going to push over some sort of unspoken line, make him draw back. Dean smirks quietly, squeezing Castiel's hands in his, and turns to look at Bobby without moving away.
"Must be Sam, then. I'm still downright adorable."
Sam's hand is like a block of ice when he slaps it onto the back of Dean's neck, over his collar.
Punching his brother in the shoulder, Dean pulls away and gives up his spot in front of the fireplace next to Cas, which Sam takes with a smug, victorious smirk at his brother, hazel eyes laughing. Dean holding Castiel's hands wasn't a problem for him (god he wished that was the most salacious thing he'd inadvertently seen from them in the past six months on the road) but taking him down a peg was too good an opportunity to miss.
"Yeah. You're too frikkin' precious for words. Go get the presents, Dean, or we're never getting there."
"He's distractible." Castiel confides, and he's laughing again as Dean flicks him off and trudges back out the door to finish the task he'd started on, but the image of his brother and his angel laughing and joking and care-free for once goes with him.
…
Castiel was the only one of them who'd bothered to wrap anything: he'd been studying for Christmas like it was a test he could pass or fail, and invariably the gifts were wrapped and hidden. Dean had sprawled along the bed, whiskey in-hand, and watched while Cas sat at a motel room table somewhere between Albuquerque and Whitefish with newspapers carefully stacked on the table and gifts resting on the chair beside him. The look of concentration, the careful slice of his pocket knife along the edges of the paper, evenly measured pieces of tape, it was endearing in its way. In the end, the newspaper funny pages looked like they'd always been intended to be wrapping paper, military straight creases and perfectly tucked edges, and as long as you ignored the mangled first attempt and looked at the finished result, you'd think Cas had been gift wrapping for all the good little boys and girls for eternity like Santa's scary badass nerdy angelic helper.
It was cute. Not that Dean would say so, because they were quiet and loose at the time and sometimes Castiel got sulky about being called on his unfamiliarity with. . . well, everything. . . and how he tried too hard. But it was endearing, and so Dean dumped his gifts to everyone else on Castiel to wrap, too, just to be able to keep watching.
And because otherwise everyone was going to get their gifts from Dean in knotted plastic grocery bags.
(Dean had forked up an extra five bucks at the store to get Castiel's gift wrapped by the store attendant, and as Cas runs his fingertips along the straight seams of the shiny cobalt blue paper, as if it was the gift itself, Dean can't help but smile and figure it was worth it.)
As Dean passes out gifts, Sam looks from the wrapped package on his knees to Dean, and smirks knowingly. "You guys giving out couples gifts now?"
"No. We bought separate gifts for you, Sam, but they naturally go together. I'll explain once you open it." Dean's spared from having to respond by Castiel, awkwardly interjecting, trying to diffuse the effect of the word. It was one of the primary, cardinal things they weren't discussing, "couple," one of a list of taboo words, and despite himself Dean feels a pang of regret at the fact that Cas was so unquestioningly accepting of his fucked up issues that he was apparently blind to the fact that it was fucked up.
Nobody misses the rushed quality of the words, Castiel's sudden tension. It was the "den of inequity" all over again, his stiffness and a fear that no one ever saw out of him when it came to an actual fight. It makes everything else come together in Dean's head, and maybe he should have figured it out already.
Castiel was nervous. Not that Bobby and Sam would have a problem with him – that something would strike Dean wrong. From pleading with his family to ignore the case for a day, to checking on him after every teasing word, to how he froze every time something could go wrong, and right down to the ridiculous wrapping paper obsession, he was trying to get this right for Dean.
"Cas, can I talk to you outside for a second?"
Sam and Bobby are looking at him, as if they knew full well what was going on or who to put blame on for it, but Cas swallows and looks up at him as he stands from the couch, blue eyes wide and strangely wary and etched with worry, and damnit. Damn it all. Turning on his heel, Dean leads him out the door, boots crunching on the snow again as he immediately carries on past the porch, and turns to watch Cas finish his approach. There's a tense set to his shoulders, the jut of his jaw is stubborn, and he looks like he's tensed for a fight now.
They need to talk. Sam was saying it all the time, and Dean's just coming to believe he might be right. They should talk.
Later.
Reaching out, Dean catches Castiel by the collar of his shirts, dragging him in and sealing their lips together. It takes a moment for Castiel's mind to shift tracks, a moment where Dean might as well be kissing a statue, and then he comes alive. There's no force to it as Castiel presses Dean to the driver's side door of the Impala, knuckle of his index finger gently tipping his chin further so he can deepen the kiss. There's something quietly reverential to how he cups his hands to Dean's face, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones, as if Dean were some sort of fragile, precious gift. Usually that was enough to make Dean turn up the heat, ratchet it into something more physical and a little farther away from those words they kept not saying, that he couldn't let himself think, but now. . .
Smoothing his hands down Castiel's sides, Dean lets himself sink into it for once, coaxing the same out of Cas.
When they break for air, Dean opens his eyes again, taking in the sight of Castiel in front of him. There's snow in Castiel's hair now, making it seem darker in contrast, and high color in his cheeks from the cold or the kiss or the nervousness, Dean couldn't tell, but he smiles to see it.
(Cas thinks Dean looks like he's glowing in the light of the setting sun that burnishes his hair deep bronze and molten gold and catches on the bright golden flecks and jade green of his irises. Castiel has watched the earth since before mankind, he walked through the Garden before temptation wrecked it, stood sentinel in the Sistine Chapel, waited in a sanatorium in Southern France and watched the paint dry on the Starry Night, seen sweeping vistas untouched by mankind, and witnessed the sun breaking over the curve of the planet day after day for millennia . . . and Dean Winchester smiling at him is the most beautiful thing he's ever laid eyes on. His Father's masterpiece, and Cas feels like he's falling all over again.)
"Relax." Dean murmurs, and reaches up to brush the snow out of his hair, and for now that's the whole of their conversation.
Sam and Bobby are speaking in low voices that break off as Dean and Castiel reenter the cabin, identical looks of suspicious consideration leveled at them, and Dean quirks his best harmless grin, grabs the top gift off of the pile and chucks it at Bobby's chest. "Gifts. It's Christmas."
"Dean." Castiel's voice is scolding, and he watches Bobby catch the gift, wincing slightly.
"It'll survive, Cas." Dean says dismissively, gently shoving the angel back into his place on the couch and dropping his gift back in his lap, and apparently the bickering old married couple act was natural enough (hell, it dated back longer than them as a relationship) that Sam and Bobby relax too.
And so the gift-exchange begins. Bobby seems amused by the Book of Enoch Castiel has given him to replace what was lost in the fire. Each page heavily annotated as it was by the angel to fix the apparently shoddy translation work and misinformation, it sparks a lively conversation in which Dean asks if Castiel's planning to edit the Bible, too, and Castiel snipes back requesting Dean do the same to Carver Edlund's Supernatural books, and eventually only a gift chucked at Dean's head by Sam manages to break up the bitchfight that ensues.
Despite using it as a projectile, Sam refuses to allow Dean to open his gift yet. It's not his turn. The mechanics and processes of Christmas gift-exchange are debated until Bobby tells the entire group of jackwads to shut up and opens his next one, delving into the collection of local brands of liquor and beer Dean has collected from across the Southwest for him over the past half a year, and then turquoise protection figures Sam got him from New Mexico.
Mostly through bickering between the Winchester brothers, they decide that as Castiel's first Christmas he is next (the patriarch of their cobbled-together family, the newest to Christmases, and they'll likely come to blows trying to force the other to go first later). He's reluctant to open the gift from Dean and ruin the wrapping paper, so Bobby's gift to him comes first, pulled out of the duffle bag at the side of his chair as if Bobby's a trucker-hat wearing, drunken, bitter Santa with a bag of probably illegal toys. The leatherwork is hand-tooled and clearly homemade, carefully shaped to hold a triangular angelic blade for easy access with a flick of his fingers to release a catch and drop it into his palm. Cas strips off his denim jacket again, rolling up his sleeve to test it, Dean's fingers are warm and gentle as he helps him cinch the leather in place on his arm.
Sam and Bobby exchange knowing looks, and Bobby sighs, cracking open one of his Christmas drinks, determined to wait out whatever the hell 'moment' they'd fallen into, again. God spare him frikkin' honeymooners.
Sam's gift of a journal doesn't require much explanation, either. Cas rifles through the blank pages with a faint smile, blue eyes alight. Millions of years of information in his head, an uncanny focus on the records and chronicles of hunters lately, and Sam wanted him to contribute to that human knowledge (so long as it didn't come out sounding like the Winchester Gospel part deux with more nudity and homoerotic subtext).
When it looks as if Castiel is going to attempt to unwrap Dean's gift to him without actually damaging the shiny wrapping, peeling the tape up carefully, everyone in the room but Dean becomes impatient. With a low mutter, Bobby flicks his pocket knife open, hands it to Sam, and Sam gives one quick slash to get Cas started.
"Oh, get over it both of you. We're not going to start putting aside space in the frikkin arsenal we have in the trunk just to give room for leftover wrapping paper. Tear the paper, Cas. It's 'traditional.'"
It takes about a minute of watching Dean tug the lapels straight on the black leather trench coat, to replace the tattered and ruined tan coat that had so been a part of him for years, for Sam to get tired of it. God, it was bad enough tripping over cast-off clothing proving Dean was enthusiastically stripping down the angel every time he left them alone in a motel room without having to watch him dress him all through Christmas.
"Moving on!" The ripping sound of Sam tearing open his own gifts breaks the moment, and if Castiel's ears are a bit red at realizing they were putting on a show, well, so be it. The laptop to replace the one destroyed in Albuquerque is pricier than they usually managed for gifts, but as practical as all their gifts to each other tended to be. Castiel demonstrates how much time he spends listening to them make pop culture references by pointing out all of the movies and television shows he's downloaded onto the computer for Sam, and though he seems somewhat unsure of the processes he can relay just how long he had to stare at the computer to make the download go through each time.
Dean had found that endearing, too, until he realized Cas wasn't going to give up watching at the computer until they were all done, as if he distrusted the computer would continue downloading without him giving it an intimidating stare. Relaying this in exaggerated tale earns a glare from Castiel and laughter from Bobby and Sam, while Sam and then Dean check the sights on their new gifts from Bobby, but Dean nudges Cas's knee with his own to let him know he's being teased.
(The fallen angel's look promises he'll pay for the teasing later, but that's good, too. Normal. Normal, and good.)
"Alright, so now do I get to look at whatever you're giving me that you tried to put my eye out with?" Dean quips, holding up the plastic film canister that had been pelted at his head to bring him on topic, arching an eyebrow at his brother and smirking. "Please tell me this isn't racy pictures. You swore you burned that roll."
"What roll?" Castiel asks, eyes darting between the brothers and a faint look of concern, and Bobby holds his hands up in a Time-Out motion.
"I really draw the line at photographic evidence." There was a quip there to be made about Crowley, but Dean swallows it: he feels his ability to do so demonstrates his strength of character.
Rubbing a hand to the back of his neck, Sam nods slightly at the case, and Dean flicks it open with his thumb. "I'm. . . yeah. I don't know. You lost this, a while back, and I've been holding on to it for you. Think you should have it back, now."
Tipping the canister upside-down, the amulet slides into his hand with the leather necklace spilling around it, a familiar weight, metal cool in his palm as it had always been. As it might always be. Dean's gaze locks on it, and beside him Castiel has fixed himself in place with that angelic stillness again. Reflexively, Dean rolls the masked amulet between thumb and index finger, the rough features of the mask partially smoothed over by the same gesture over the span of decades . . . from the time he was eleven, until he lost faith in everything.
Until the night both of them had lost faith, in God, in themselves, and in their ability to stop Armageddon.
They might still have questions, might always have doubts, but so much had changed in a few short years.
"Thanks, Sammy." He could joke about regifting. He could quip about dumpster diving for gifts. But he doesn't, and they all pretend not to hear the catch in his voice, as he fixes the amulet he never should have abandoned around his neck again, tugging the neck of his shirt to let it fall into place against his skin once more.
Final gift of the night. Given Sammy's last, it might be pretty understandable that Cas would be shaken. After all, he'd carted that amulet around with him on his own fruitless quest for God, it signified quite a bit for him as well. What is not normal is the moment Castiel fidgets and swallows, the clear bob of his Adam's apple as he glances nervously at Bobby, before producing his gift for Dean. It's not wrapped. It's not anything. He'd considered another gift, in fact only one other gift had been on his mind for several months now, but it wasn't the right time. This was. Dean doesn't have to check what's being pressed into his palm: he can hear the click and rattle of the assortment of pills within the brown plastic prescription bottle, and after a moment even Sam understands the significance of it.
Dean had asked Cas never to change, years ago.
Dean had asked him to stop, only weeks ago.
For Christmas, he's giving Dean a promise. They are Team Free Will. They fight predestination. Nothing can force them to become what the future showed of them.
Cas wraps his hands around Dean's, closing Dean's fist over the pharmacy of narcotics he'd built for himself, shuts his eyes, swallows his pride, and gives it up. Everything, everything, had fallen apart on them because he hadn't been willing to change course or ask Dean for help. He had spiraled uncontrollably, destroying everything around him, rather than admit he needed help.
Dean sees the silent struggle on Castiel's face, the explanation he's working up to offering, and shifts his hand within both of Cas's, other hand rising up to cup the back of his neck, drawing him in and pressing a kiss to his bowed head. "Okay."
Funny how life-changing conversations could occur without words.
Dean smiles against Castiel's hair, warm palm gently squeezing the back of his neck, and nods. "Okay."
…
"You two haul the gear out to the van, I'll help clean up in here."
Also funny how an innocuous phrase could make it clear in the minds of everyone around that there was going to be a talk. Dean pauses in dumping a load of paper plates into the trash of the cabin's kitchenette, raising an eyebrow at Bobby as he dismisses Sam and Cas, unsurprised when Bobby turns back to him with a determined look on his face as if he's been holding something in all night.
Dusting his hands off on a paper towel, Dean watches him from across the kitchen, bracing himself.
"I've seen the state of your kitchen on any given day, Bobby. You might as well spit out whatever it is you've got on your mind."
"Yeah, yeah. Get your panties outta a wad, boy, you don't gotta go looking for a fight every time someone's got more than two words to say to you." Eyes narrowed, Bobby looks at Dean again, really looks at him, and shakes his head slightly. "You don't even see it, do you?"
"See what?" There's still suspicion there, still wariness, and Bobby snorts as if he'd rather be saying unflattering things about Dean's observational skills, and gestures at Dean.
"I've known you most of your life. I've seen you dragged through the kind of shit no man should have to deal with, and you pull through and keep on plugging along. Watched you man up a hell of a lot earlier than any punk kid should have to. And I've watched you fumbling along trying to figure out this thing with Cas too long now. You've grown up a lot, son, but you got a ways to go on this."
"Bobby, I. . ." He wasn't ready for this conversation. Bobby cuts him off with a curt hand gesture, and a piercing gaze.
"No. I'm not done yet, Dean. I don't do this damned Oprah crap any more often than you do, so shut your hole and let me finish. I don't care Cas is an angel. I don't care Cas is a guy. I care a whole damned lot though about the fact that I just saw you laugh and be a complete grinning fool more in the past day than I have in years, and I'm not going to watch you screw that up without even trying to make it work. You got issues. Deal with 'em. Because if you got a love like that, kid, nothing else matters. And if you lose it without trying to make it work, it'll kill you. And if it doesn't kill you, I will."
He'd give anything, anything, to get his wife back again, to have the kind of love he'd lost when she died, and then died again. These were his boys, and as far as he was concerned they ought to have the chance at happiness. If Dean Winchester managed to fall in love with someone who could handle the crap he dragged himself through, then Bobby Singer was going to be first in line to smack him upside the head if he let his myriad issues keep him shuffling his hand when he should go all-in. He'd seen the few tense moments, spoke to Sam while they went outside for their 'talk,' knew Dean had gotten his ass handed to him in San Antonio, and again in Albuquerque, seen Dean's nervousness, seen Cas freeze, and if ever there was a pair of headstrong fools in love it was that dumbass kid who thought he had to carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders and singlehandedly save everyone, and the fucked up broken angel who figured all of the world's problems were his fault because he'd failed at being God.
Dean's gaping at him, and he can see him cooking up a smartass retort, but if the boy tries any kind of denial he's not sure he'll be able to stop himself from kicking his surrogate son's ass. So he claps Dean on the shoulder, dropping his empty beer bottle in the trashcan as he does.
"And yeah, love can leave you a fucked up mess if it falls apart. Bravest thing a man can do, giving someone else the opportunity to wreck them worse than anyone. It's worth the pain, though." On his way out the door, Dean calls out to him. He's trying to figure out what to say, looks like he's trying to work out a thank you or give a genuine response, and after a moment Bobby rolls his eyes.
"Don't strain yourself, idjit. We've got a hunt tomorrow. Merry Christmas. Figure your crap out."
…
Bobby's "talk" with Castiel, conversely, takes all of ten words from the hunter, and is answered in eight seconds of response. All Dean catches of it as his brother tells him (though he already knows) that they'll be meeting up in the morning for a case is the pause, the look of intent and determination from both of them, and then Bobby repeating the clap on the shoulder from the morning, sending the fallen angel back inside.
…
Cas is feeding more branches to the fire when Dean comes back inside, and firelight on his face makes his eyes seem dark, makes shadows dance on his skin, and brings up all sorts of bad memories, but Dean makes himself watch anyway, arms folded, trying to figure out where to begin. Closing the glass enclosure over the fire, Castiel speaks to him without looking away from the flames.
"You're thinking, again. What are you thinking about?"
Hello, Dean. What were you dreaming about?
Castiel's gaze swings towards him, eyes apparently all-seeing, face unreadable, and it might as well be years ago sitting on Dean's bed, memories of the rack tearing through his dreamscape and a beautiful, remote, terrifying creature he barely knew, capable of throwing him right back to Hell, watching him while he slept.
Things have gone wrong for them, so many times.
And everything that's ever gone right in Dean's life, he loses.
He has no idea how to proceed, and his voice is faintly hoarse as he answers slowly, what he's thinking about. "Tempting fate."
Castiel's eyes narrow, his head cants to the side, and he watches Dean carefully. "Why? What about her?"
"No, no. Metaphorically, not literally this time." Their lives were all kinds of messed up, that they had to clarify that kind of shit. "Though she's probably still not fond of us, so hey. Maybe her and her sisters too." Raking his fingers through his hair, Dean collapses onto the couch, and as joyful as the day was, the length of it was taking its toll. He leaves room for Cas beside him, gesturing him over.
"We are not her favorite people in the world, no." Castiel concedes, and when Dean tugs him closer as he sits down, Castiel lets himself be pulled to lean against him, enfolded into Dean's arms, cheek resting against his chest over the drumbeat of his heart. "But I assumed the point of this life was that we always tempt fate, Dean, so that we may decide our own."
"Which is a fast track to broken, bloody and dead for everyone around me."
Whatever direction Dean expected this to take, it wasn't Castiel pushing himself upright again abruptly almost immediately after getting comfortable, drawing a leg up with him on the couch so he can turn fully to face Dean, ducking his head down to ensure he's caught Dean's eyes and fixing on his best glare once Dean lifts his head to look at Cas. "You are a . . . complete pain in the ass, Dean Winchester."
"First name basis, remember?"
"Be quiet. All day, you have withdrawn the moment you stopped to think about the fact that you were happy, because for some incomprehensible reason, after everything you've done and given, you don't believe you deserve that. You were happy today, Dean, and you refuse to admit it to yourself because you believe that 'fate' or 'luck' has decided that you don't get to keep that, and the moment you accept it at face value it will be snatched away. You are an idiot."
"Geeze, Cas, why don't you tell me how you really feel?" Dean snipes back, stung by the insult, but it barely qualifies as an argument. Particularly not when Castiel has built up steam, and knows him far better than he should.
"How I feel, Dean?" Cas's eyes narrow and he leans in, a hand cradling Dean's cheek, and steals a kiss that is too brief for Dean to respond, too hard to be properly sweet, and too measured to be truly angry. Resting his forehead against Dean's after his outburst, Cas closes his eyes, his voice rough. "I'm never allowed to tell you how I feel."
"Cas. . ." The day had been perfect, a gift from Cas, and he didn't want it to end on this note of pain in Castiel's voice and know that he'd put it there.
"I am in love with you, Dean Winchester." This is truth, it is fact, the stone upon which an entire life as a human has been founded, and given with the weight of divine pronouncement. There is an edge of defiance there, as well, stubbornly putting forth the words that he has managed not to hear for so long, daring Dean to argue, but giving him no time to respond.
"As for fate, or luck, or curses. . . Dean, I am broken. So are you. I have died, and so have you. We're impermanent beings, and we're going to die eventually. Possibly soon and likely violently and probably together. Any agent of fate that attempts to mete out whatever end they believe we've earned will have to face all three of us, and that's. . . it's no different than what we've dealt with in the past. We have both already risked or given everything to get here, and I don't understand why you think you can't be . . ."
Hand tangling into Castiel's hair, other threading fingers through his belt loops, clamping onto his waist to draw him into his lap, Dean kisses Castiel to shut him up. Kisses him to answer him. Kisses him because it's the best way to try to make this right. And because he damn well wants to kiss him.
"Shh, Cas." With a shaking breath of a laugh, Dean rests his head against Castiel's, eyes closed. "Figures you'd make it hard for me to get a word in edgewise while trying to get me to talk. I suck at this, so just. . . give me a minute." Castiel's silence stands as agreement, and after a moment he can feel Cas threading his fingers through the hair at the back of his head, over and over again, and whether it was Castiel's nervousness or trying to soothe Dean's, he couldn't tell. Opening his eyes, Dean nods as if at some unspoken signal to begin. "Look, my life has sucked for a long time. It's been craptastic. I know I'm broken, I know I'm not very smart, and I fuck things up all the time. . ."
Cas pulls back slightly, mouth open to argue, to defend him, blue eyed gaze sharp, and Dean shakes his head curtly, motioning for him to stop before he can begin, fighting back tears and pretending Cas can't see them. "Shh, Cas, just let me say this."
"Everything I love gets taken, or I ruin it, or I put it in danger. And every single time it hurts worse than everything Alastair did to me in the pit, but . . . fuck it all, Cas . . . you make me stronger. I can try this – just keep trying to deal – and maybe have a reason to smile every once in a while. You're not getting any bargain out of this, but if you'll have me I think I can try. And I know I'm running scared, and it's fucking things up, but . . . Cas, I'm not scared of loving you, I'm scared because I love you."
In the shuttered darkness of his closed eyelids, the silence isn't oppressive - Castiel's fingers trace over his face gently, thumb swiping over his lips, fingertips playing along his jaw, up to his his temples into his hair, and the fallen angel shifts in his lap, knees pressing into the couch on either side as he draws Dean up for a kiss, soft and chaste. As before, outside in the snow, the urge rises to fix that, to keep Castiel from this awed, almost worshipful treatment. Cas shouldn't be regarding anyone like this, let alone him: a high-school dropout with ten miles of issues, no real marketable skills, and nothing to recommend him but a nice car and being handy when things needed killed.
For that, an angel chose to fall?
"You are so much more than what you believe of yourself, Dean." It's an old argument, one that Dean still apparently hasn't taken to, and it breaks Castiel's heart every time he sees it. He's tried forcing Dean to accept his worth, from the moment they met face to face, and he just won't believe.
He knows, even now, Dean won't accept it. So he presses a kiss to Dean's closed eyelids in turn, tasting the salt of tears on his lips after, and brings his hands down to Dean's shoulders again, fingers hesitating over the brand he knows is beneath Dean's sleeve before continuing the slow slide to twine their fingers together, waiting for Dean to look at him. Castiel can be patient when he wants to be, and he knows that Dean has always been more comfortable revealing his emotions without being scrutinized through it.
(Castiel knows, because he has never been able to help watching Dean, however uncomfortable it made him, any more than he can now.)
When Dean meets his eyes again, Castiel smiles – genuinely smiles, unable to quite contain the joy he feels when Dean looks at him again and doesn't take it back, or try to cheapen the moment with a joke or by turning it into something purely sexual. "Thank you."
Dean laughs, once, a huff of amusement, and shakes his head slightly, shifting on the couch more comfortably, making himself relax. "I say 'I love you,' and you say 'thank you.' You're supposed to say 'I love you too.'"
"I already said it." Castiel points out reasonably and squeezes Dean's hands lightly as he gives Dean his opportunity, a peace offering of lighter conversation, and he feels irrepressibly light and happy in that moment. He's willing to give Dean whatever he needs. "And you already knew it. Apparently, I've 'never been subtle.'"
"You used to watch me while I slept, Cas."
"I still do." Castiel responds, dryly.
"You'd show up almost right on top of me, practically glue yourself to my side."
"Your objections of 'personal space' were inconsistent and usually for the benefit of whomever was nearby to witness it."
" . . . What, you're saying you knew . . .?"
Smiling again, Castiel leans in to steal another kiss.
Dean still lacks faith, in many ways. He still doesn't believe in himself - but in this moment Castiel is hopeful that perhaps he can help give Dean that, too. After all. . . his hunter didn't used to believe in angels, either.
There were times for proving him wrong. Christmas seems an ideal opportunity for working on matters of faith.