The Softer Side of the Knife Edge (or The One in Which the Nerd Angel is Probably the Maple Syrup)
Summary: Sam wants a Christmas Tree and totally unaware Dean promised Cas a better one while they were in Purgatory, trys to convince his brother to rescue a half dead twig... Dean always gets his way though, and pancakes, Dean always gets his pancakes too 'cuz pancakes are like... the best thing ever Sammy' even if a pancake guy 'used to like bacon'
Notes: Written for the Dean/Cas secret santa exchange 2012 I just don't do Sam, so this was a challenge!
First time I've ever finished a Supernatural story and it's not even 5000 words! Still, at least it wont take long out of your lives if you decided it was a total waste of a read! Happy holidays guys, hope santa was good to you all! I got Jensen naked on a mouse mat! feeling like an awful good girl ;) thanks santa!
"Its tradition Dean."
"Since friking when do we care about tradition Samantha? I don't care what your lady bits are telling you, enough is enough."
A tree, all he wants is a tree, and how often does Sam really ask Dean for anything? Still apparently today's the day Dean re-writes the Family Comes First Rule so Sam primes his puppy dog eyes and goes in for the kill. He's not going down without a fight.
They rescue people all the damn time, just once Sam would like to rescue a tree.
~8~
Dean was different since he'd come back from purgatory. Not only did he have no control over his reflexes and seem to be constantly awake really, Sam thinks his brother sleeps like 2 hours a night now, and not until Sam wakes up first- but the oldest Winchester was flat out weirding Sam out.
Not that he didn't always, granted, but Sam was worried his brother was more than a screw loose these days.
Deans Rules for Life read like this:
Family Comes First
No Chick Flick Moments.
No Douching Up The Car
You Can't Trust Anyone But Family
There is Always Time For Drinking
Absolutely No Chick Flick Moments
Family Always Comes First
No Coldplay, Ever
No Drinking Demon Blood Sammy, Ever
Absolutely. Definitely. No Chick Flick Moments.
Since Deans stay in Purgatory though these rules were going all to shit, only to be replaced with weirdo ones that Sam didn't have the capacity for. Not that he hadn't tried.
At first Sam assumed Dean needed laid, so like a good little brother he had begged and pleaded (nothing like a bit of role reversal) and eventually Dean had gone with him to a likely looking bar in town. It had been entirely unremarkable at first. Dean was all swagger, if a bit strangely tense, and Sam sank into the familiarity of it instantly. That was until the event they never talk about.
A girl all breasts and hair had ran her hand along the eldest hunters shoulder as she walked behind him and before Sam could assume his brother had previously been making eyes at her Dean had the girl pinned face down on the bar and not in the fifty shades of sexy way.
They left town after that, fast.
Sam never really saw Dean drink after that, but he did start see more and more the tight way his brother controlled his body and wondered again what Purgatory did to him.
Maybe it was letting his Samsquach down, or that Sam had finally worn him down but Dean started to honest to god, open up to his brother more after that too.
In fact maybe it was too long being sober that caused the problem.
He didn't want to talk about Purgatory though, or the horrors of their life like Sam expected, he seemed to be trying to talk to his brother about Cas, probably.
The eldest Winchester hadn't completely changed though which was why Sam was left with the mother of all headaches.
Dean disguised his talk about Cas (probably) moments by making them exclusively about pancakes, which made Sam wish he could syphon out his own brain because it made NO sense no matter how Sam looked at it and when he'd asked his big brother what he really meant Dean got so angry he actually shouted at him in the middle of the diner. About pancakes. So Sam thinks he might never know. The golden rule was edited:
No Chick Flick Moments, Unless there's Breakfast and Maple Syrup. Then Its Open Season Regardless of Sam's Therapy Bill
And sure it wasn't Coldplay, but when the weirdest older brother ever started slipping songs about angels with shotguns and Snow Patrol singles into the play list Sam actually muttered 'Christo' just to be sure. Since they were in the car and not a diner though he didn't have enough pancakes to stop Dean from pulling over and making him walk the last 4 miles to the motel when he questioned why his un-possessed brother was girling up the play list. So:
No Coldplay, But Any Other Grim Depressing Break in the Endless Rock? Liiiike Totes Amazeballs(Unless Sam had Chosen It)
They are not the only rules Dean has re-written after getting out, but they definitely creep Sam out most.
The one that went You Can't Trust Anyone But Family Sam now suspects has deviated into You Cant Trust Anyone That Isn't Family Unless They Rock a Set of Fangs and that creeps him out a lot too. He doesn't like to think about the comparisons with Ruby though so mostly he pretends he doesn't know about that one just yet.
When Dean brought up (over pancakes) 'doing Christmas' at Bobbys Sam thought it was maybe the closest his brother was ever going to get to admitting that there's now a hole in him that the old man's scrap yard used to fill.
He'd also kinda dreaded Deans new golden rule and wondered if he was going to have to have the whole now Bobby's gone talk with a banana stack.
He didn't, and Dean had quickly changed the subject thank god(they were really going to have to find someone more deserving to thank), but it did make him think.
The old hunter would insist every year (that they weren't ass deep in guts) on having the boys decorate some fire hazard of a plastic tree (that was probably bought for them when they were small not that Bobby would ever admit it) with the least oily car parts he had mirror polished, grinning broad and gruff under his winter beard and calling them 'Idjits' when they groused.
After the three of them would watch Kung Fu movies together and drink late into the night, throwing popcorn and arguing over the all time greats. It was a tradition that had started so far back that their father should really have been involved in some of them too, but he never was.
After awhile Bobby would excuse himself and at breakfast both boys would pretend not to have heard him play Karens old vinyl records on loop until the small hours of the morning.
These were Deans fondest memory's of Christmas Sam's sure, and boy they are good.
Sam loved them too. And even though Sam wouldn't trade those memories for anything short of his soul, he's always desperately wanted to be normal, and there were far more where they were ass deep in guts than at the old hunters.
So while thinking of Bobby hurts, it also hurts that not so long ago the youngest Winchester had been planning to spend Christmas with the sweetest woman he'd ever met – the vet.
He'd foolishly let himself imagine it would be like it was all those years ago with Jess. Full of family that laughed too loud and hugged too often cooked way too much.
He had imagined not flinching as the crackers were pulled. He imagined the eccentric aunt who'd eye him up when he bent down to fuss the dog and he imagined his maybe-one-day-mother-in-law laughing good naturedly at his attempts to help in the kitchen. He imagined falling into bed at the end of it all with a beautiful woman who was all his, who he loved, stomach warm with home cooked food and head fuzzy with too much eggnog. They'd kiss and laugh and have to keep it down thanks to the house being full of people who's names he'd actually know. He imagined she would fill the gap left in him by Lucifer and Yellow Eyes and all the crazy shit he'd never asked for.
But Sam is a Winchester, and Family Comes First so when Dean walked back into his life he knew there was no running away. Instead of all his imaginings (it was probably stupid anyway) he's going to spend it in some piece of shit motel not listening to his brother jacking off to porn while that beautiful woman forgets all about him, because his brother misses Bobby and its all Sam can do.
Given all this he had figured Dean could at least stomach some festivities. Considering everything, the pancakes, the drinking ban, the Snow Patrol, the beautiful woman, Sam's rock solid sure he's owed a festive Christmas, and he knows it's what Bobby would have wanted.
Dean became withdrawn once Sam brought the old hunter into it but half an hour later they had two microwave Christmas dinners, a string of almost bald tinsel and an equally tatty Santa hat that must have been the last in town to hand to the girl at the checkout. She smiled shyly at them as she put it through, looking back and forth between them she'd hesitated (the brothers dreaded to think) before throwing in a sprig of fake mistletoe on the house, brightly saying how cute she thought it was that they were spending Christmas together. Dean stopped laughing only long enough to pinch Sam's (horrified) ass on the way out of the store simultaneously winking at the girl that may or may not be Becky Rosen's soul mate.
Dean had just bought the best whiskey fraudulent credit cards could buy (now in a slightly better mood) to accompany a whole stack of porn(which was probably the reason) when Sam spotted the forlorn pine tree at the front of the shop. He'd never admit it, but Sam's heart-strings had been tugged by the sad excuse for a twig the moment he saw it and he had immediately decided to liberate the under dog from its formica hell. Nudging Dean and grinning at the tree Sam and all his hight had to actually push forcefully past the last minuet shoppers to get to it.
Dean got the damn Eiffel tower stuck up his ass when he saw it though and had flat-out refused.
~8~
"What happened dude? You were willing at the mall and now what..." Sam sets loose the puppy dog eyes but Dean doesn't look.
"Shut up Sam. I said no." Dean long ago learned to throw enough authority behind his voice not to need to shout, he very rarely uses it on Sam though.
"Your not Dad Dean, you can't just say no."
"Watch me."
And that was that. Sam was left to watch his brothers broad shoulders disappearing through the crowd. He only wants a stupid tree.
He scratches the back of his neck and smiles weakly at a girl in an elf costume eyeing him up from across the store.
~*~ FLASHBACK~*~
It's gloomy, dank and Dean's just catching his breath when Cas finally catches up to him in the gap between the trees. They could have been in this grey clearing a hundred times before for all the difference it made in Purgatory, every damn bit looks the same.
"Rest Dean" A bloodied hand lands briefly on the hunters shoulder.
Cas forever insisted Dean rest, like his guilt would go away if Dean finally got 6 hours uninterrupted. Outwardly the hunter made a show of complaining, but deep deep down he might have needed Castiel to care about him, having someone's sympathy in Purgatory was an unexpected luxury.
Before he could tell Cas off for being Mother Frikkin' Hen though Benny bursts through the leaves hands going straight to his knees to keep himself standing.
"Well boys, as fun as that was..." Dean snorts, "I need me dinner." the hunters face is instantly unreadable but the way he makes himself busy facing away from the vampire speaks volumes to his companions.
"I'll be makin' sure nothing bothers you brother." Dean recognises Benny trying to make up for making him uncomfortable. He's just glad Sammy isn't here to see how low his big brother's fallen as he nods in silent gratitude.
Dean sets about making the most insignificant fire the world has never seen as Benny goes. No bigger than his hand and shrouded by the biggest leaves Demon Hell can offer. They all know a fire is dangerous but when the adrenalin wares off Dean inevitably starts shaking and however tiny the heat source is the only way the human will be able to sleep.
Tonight though the damn thing wont light, the ground is wetter here apparently and there's not a single dry twig anywhere. After attempt the 4th Cas actually offers to let Dean burn his jacket.
The refusal comes out as a list of what the fucks and no frikkin ways. The coat's a part of Castiel the way the Impala's a part of him, as far as Dean was concerned anyway, he isn't sure how the angel feels.
Dean wastes exactly 3 more minuets trying to light the damp pile of sludgy yuch before resolutely baling up his jacket and pressing his body into the curve of a tree trunk not saying a word the whole time to the angel watching helplessly. Eyelids flicker over tired green orbs and he wills the knife edge that is his life to be soft enough to sleep on while Cas stands as the same impenetrable guilty wall he has been since Dean found him days ago.
He doesn't know how long its been when Cas sits down at his feet but it feels like forever. Its been will power alone that's stopping him shaking like the angel in a whore house from the cold.
His fingers ache where he's been clenching his weapon, muscles twitching from every snapping twig and belligerent howl and he's so damn tired all the same.
"You are still not asleep." Dean makes some guttural noise that he hopes Cas understands means 'no shit Captain Obvious' and then because you'd have to Sam to have gotten that he says it out loud.
"You should rest." is all he gets for his effort.
"Yeah well I ain't got a quarter for the Magic Fingers so what's a guy to do?" the hunter doesn't open his eyes, but its much easier not to shake with the angel close and the bravado's back in his own voice.
Hell was this kind of freezing.
Sometimes back then he'd welcome the torture starting, just for the first seconds of adrenalin to warm up his bones. Purgatory reminds him of that kind of cold, the gut deep damp rot.
Some days he wonders if Cas runs hot, because the angel is an angel, and if Hell is this cold surely Heaven burns? He keeps his eyes closed as he thinks about it again now and wonders why he'd never paid attention when his hands had lingered on the angel before.
Dean is never going to ask if Cas can still read minds cuz he really doesn't want to know but in less than a heartbeat the angel is lying next to him, mojoing from one spot to the other.
The rustle of leaves Cas creates when he graces the ground makes Deans weapon hand twitch again but he knows somehow its Cas, and though he knows the angel wouldn't lie down in the middle of an attack and Benny's guarding the camp he opens his eyes and checks the perimeter as best he can, sight snagging on a small spiny tree.
When he's sure they're safe he is all about his holy tax accountant.
Completely out of synch with everything around him the hunter suddenly finds himself shaking with silent laughter, one hand reaching out to the angel looking for some way to convey his amusement quietly, clutching roughly in the dirty scrubs.
Cas looks like he has absolutely never experienced being horizontal before and Dean gets the distinct impression Cas appreciates it in the same way Bobby would've appreciated stepping in dog crap. The ridiculousness of it fills Dean with an unexpected warmth that has nothing to do with the temperature.
"Dude" is all Dean can say, eyes crinkled with the unexpected laughter. It's the little things that keep him on the right side of madness and more often than not now, they come too far between.
"You are too cold to sleep Dean, I hardily find that a cause for mirth." Cas addresses the branches above them still steadfastly refusing to look at Dean, pissed off Mummy in a coffin pose absolutely perfect. It's now Dean realises he's been holding on to the scrubs just a moment too long.
He was right though, Cas burns like a woman after too much whiskey, hot and distracting under his fingers, no matter how silly he looks.
"Yeah well," he bolsters, "its Christmas Cas, nobody sleeps."
"I...I was unaware you were tracking the days." again to the leaves above their head. Dean plasters his I got a secret for ya Sammy grin on and reluctantly lifts his hand from the angels chest.
"Don't need to Feathers, we got our very own Christmas tree hand delivered."
The spiny little tree isn't exactly a Hallmark card, but it does look suspiciously like a pine tree and its the fist thing he's seen besides monster guts to help distinguish one grey clearing from another. Cas finally moves his neck stiffly to regard it with narrow eyes. Dean lets his hand fall back down to the warmth.
"Dean, I do not actually have feathers." It's so not what Deans expecting and its so Cas all at the same time.
"Oh yeah, those bad ass wings of yours looked pretty feathery to me."
"I assure you Dean, they are far from...feathery." Finally their eyes meet and despite how tired he feels Dean quirks his eye brow and challenges the statement. Cas speaks again before Dean can think of some other way to wind the angel up.
"They are not!" Dean swears a smile tugs at the corner of Cas's mouth and after so long with moody guilty 'I'm only going to get you killed' Cas it feels like he's won the lottery.
"What ever you say Feathers." Cas's glare is completely eclipsed by the way he moves closer to Dean without using his hands (witch are still folded on his chest just inches from Deans) and looking like a ridiculous wriggly mess as he does it.
Deans laughing anew which seems only to frustrate the angel.
"Dude, really, you've never laid down before?"
"It is not something I am accustom too, my wings don't like it.." Deans fingers flex
"Well get your ass over here, no point rolling round in the mud if you ain't gunna make it worth my while. And Fyi Cas, wings?" he's winking like the pro he is, not entirely sure why but the flood gates have opened. It feels so good to be this Dean again. "that's awesome."
The angel finally moves his hands to move his body and he still looks ridiculous and wriggly on the forest floor but it doesn't matter because he's hot and solid and pushing and Dean should be giving that personal space talk again because he's pretty sure that dudes who hug, eh... huddle to share body heat don't do it face to face but he's smirking and he can't do both at the same time.
It doesn't occur to him that he could be the one to turn over.
"Like to look 'em in the eye hu Cas?" Its a rush to see those blue eyes widen and the hunter knows he's getting carried away. His weapon arm is trapped under him and the angel has his back exposed but both of them have been just surviving now for so long. Dean needs to know he's still got this, still got the ability to make someone see something in him he himself doesn't and Cas seems in the mood to play.
"That's pretty kinky"
The fact is that Cas is defined entirely by the things he's seen in Dean escapes the hunter.
"I...I...Am I doing this wrong?" Dean wants to say all kinds of things but something lets out a blood curdling scream and he flinches and pulls the angel closer instead.
"Nah nah angel boy, you just lay there like a good little Space Heater and just mojo us the hell outa here if anything turns up yeh? I'm too old to be ganking anything on Christmas."
"I would guard your life with nothing less than my own Dean."
Deans sets about rearranging his nerd angel so he doesn't have to see how genuine that statement really is. Deans heart is doing something weird and he's telling him self its probably because his arms numb.
When he's done they are chest on chest, offending numb arms buried under each others bodys rather than their own and Dean is finally, finally warm enough to feel his fingers. It puts him worryingly close to the angels baby blues though so he's reduced to looking past the square-jawed stubble at the not quite Christmas tree until he finds his game face.
Its been so long since he's had a body flush with his and it feels so tenuous and fragile and dangerously like Cas'll be ripped away by this disaster of a place. Dean reminds himself sternly that Cas is as close to indestructible as he has ever known, that he's doing this to help Dean not the other way round.
The only one yet to survive the Winchesters attempts at friendship and still stick around.
"Dean, I have never had 'a Christmas'."
The holy son of a bitch practically vibrates when he talks, Dean feels it radiating through him in their new position.
"Yeah, you guys never throw your little brother a birthday party?"
"The God Child was born to the chorus of almost every angel in Heaven. I was stationed away without my garrison for so long I never had the chance to join them."
"Yeah? Betcha coulda out chorused those dicks anyway."
"It was not a competition Dean." Dean chances a look down and his girly stomach definitely didn't flip flop with the tiny smile he catches on the chapped lips.
They are So. Close.
"Yeah well, when we get out, you me and Sammy are gunna have the best damn Christmas you've ever seen. We're gunna have the fattest turkey and the smoothest whiskey and I'll get you a real Christmas Tree that's green and bushy and crap. And you, you not-feathery little weirdo, can sing all night. Every dick angel out there will wish they were you."
Deans breath is clawing Cas's own into his body and maybe there's something angelic about even that because he's feeling like he's never needed something more without knowing what it is and he's so scared, but its the first time in always that he's not actually afraid.
"I...I would like that Dean." Cas's lips graze his as the words form and Dean suddenly knows what he needs and what he doesn't know is how he hasn't always known.
This is Dean Winchesters life though, and God, absentee father that he is, fucking hates him.
So its exactly when Dean realises that maybe Cas is the only thing that's ever doing to survive his life and yet still make feel Dean desperate and alive, Benny flies through the clearing. Something dripping and black and standard Purgatory hanging from his shoulder.
The hunters urge is to throw Cas off and hack and slash and kill, but he knows this is important, that he may never be tired enough or brave enough for this to happen again. So before his own muscles betray him he pushes forward, closes his emotional chasm and for a split second the world stops.
Cas isn't the best kisser, but the gasp of surprise gets Dean where he needs to be and damn if its not perfect. The fire in his belly and the stubble against his chin and Cas's tongue moving against his. Benny's fight howls and drips and crunches around them and its going to be over too soon.
He might not be Castiels first kiss but Dean knows if any of them would mean anything to his Angel, it should be his.
In a heartbeat its over and all too soon Cas is drenched in blood and Dean has bits of Thing sticking to him where Cas had previously been pressed and Benny is laughing death in the face once again amongst the guts and putrid flesh of... something.
Dean looks at the battle worn Angel and silently promises to tear apart Purgatory if he doesn't smile back at him. He does though, a shy twitch of his lips lets Dean know he's not totally screwed the coop.
They move on. It'll be 18 hours before Dean steals another hour of sleep from Purgatory's claws and when he does he'll be sure he dreams of Christmas.
It'll be much much longer before he has his Angel to himself again.
~*~END FLASHBACK~*~
Sam gave up on operation Rescue a Christmas Tree.
When he walks through the motel door an hour later the strangest of his reactions is being glad that he had.
The first thing he sees is Dean laid out looking questionably close to Castiel, who is apparently not in purgatory any more. Their flushed faces are inches apart and Dean is running disbelieving fingertips over every inch of the filthy angel.
His brothers reactions have gone to shit too, because he doesn't even notice Sam walking in.
The second and third thing he eventually notices is the biggest, greenest Christmas tree Sam has ever seen in the corner and frozen turkey fit to feed the 5000 underneath it. His brother couldn't get any weirder.
"I am sorry Dean, I tried to make everything like you wanted, but I fear I am too exhausted to sing all night." whatever that means Dean gets it because his brother laughs warm and loud and actually pushes his fingers through Cas's matted hair like he doesn't know its disgusting.
"Next year, Feathers."
"Dean I-"
"Its great Cas, really great...I'm just, It just...I'm glad your back."
Sam reaches quietly for the Impala's key in the dish next to the door and Dean must be as fixated as he looks because he doesn't even look up when Sam turns around and walks out again, smiling the single most disbelieving smile he's ever worn.
Sam pulls his phone out on the way to the car and on the third ring the Vet answers.
He'll text Dean later, and they'll all four of them have breakfast together on Boxing Day and this time it will be awkward and weird, not because they have an angel with them who doesn't get interacting with the waitress, or because their hunters and something wants to kill them, but because Sams girl is there looking uncomfortable but determined to make small talk while the rest of them resolutely don't talk about about how an Angel of the Lord Escaped Purgatory last night, stole a Christmas tree and spent the rest of his brothers fake birthday sinning beneath the desperate needy flesh of The Righteous man.
Instead they'll talk about pancakes and Sam will literally. Crack. up.