"Mom? Can I do it?" a small, almost shy voice came from behind her. Mary smiled with weary eyes. Christmas was exhausting, having two children was even more so, but it was worth it for that face. The mother turned to the small boy, no more than five years old, and handed him a small ornament. The small golden bell that went towards the tree should be easy enough for him, though she worried that if it was dropped and clattered, her one year old would wake up. With a nervous glance upstairs, Mary lifted up her son and gave him her full attention as he placed the bell atop a branch.
A few small chimes erupted from the metal bell that Dean held, his ears perked up with pleasure at the sound. His mother's hands tightened on his ribs as she lowered him from the top of the Christmas tree.
"It rang!" He cried, in an excited slightly hushed voice.
"You're right, it did." his mother agreed, she pulled him onto her lap and held him tight, looking up at the angel on top of the tree.
"And you know what that means?" She murmured Dean pulled in her smell. She smelled like home, and peppermint. A certain exhilaration filled his stomach,
"What?" he asked excitedly.
"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings!"
Sam laughed out loud when Castiel said this, but Dean's heart sank, just a bit, not quite remembering why.
"Cas isn't that from a movie?" Sam asked, playfully tossing some tinsel over the angel's head.
"Is it?" The celestial creature asked, he always had some sort of need for knowledge, a curiosity of humans that would probably get him killed one day, or worse, fallen. He wondered if Dean knew what that phrase meant for him, what it meant to both of them. Probably not, he wasn't a prophet, after all, how would he have sensed that he, at the young age of five, was the one that gave him his wings?
Ah, now I remember... Dean thought, wondering where he'd heard that phrase before. "Yeah, mom said it once! I was helping with decorations and a bell went off, kinda like just now. I wonder which angel Sam just gave wings," He winked at his brother and passed him a beer. "I hope she's hot, maybe she'll thank you." He added with a nudge to his left, into Sam's side. The boys were seated in the bat cave this Christmas, Sam had finally gotten some cable there, so they could all sit around a television and watch sappy movies and commercialized holiday tales.
"So," Dean said, turning to his right to face a slightly tipsy Cas. He'd already downed a 6 pack, and was only barely affected. "Is it true, the wing thing, ding-a-ling." The hunter laughed at his own joke, light heartedly, but was secretly yearning to know. Had he given some angel their wings? What if it was someone he'd killed? What if it was an angel Cas killed? More than anything Dean wanted to know why his stomach felt like it was going to drop out of his body; he didnt' normally feel like that when he thought of his mother, not lately, anyway.
"Of course," Castiel responded, his voice low and husky with alcohol. "Not just any bell, though, those are too often. It's got to be special. Between a human and an angel that are destined to share a connection. Angels can go thousands on millions of years without their wings. We can travel, just not as fast. It takes more . . . " he paused, tasting the word Dean used for his powers on the tip of his tongue, "Mojo, before we get our wings. They can be granted to us at any time, but we have to earn them, or a bell has to ring, or both." He laughed to himself, expressing himself in the most human way that he'd learned.
"Like Clarence! He had to go through trial after trial, with the amount of times he irritated father."
"Thanks for the history lesson Cas," Sam stated, rolling his eyes and added more tinsel to the top of the angel's head.
"Now shut up, it's back on." The boys turned their attention to the television, for the most part. Dean's attention lingered on Castiel, moments longer than it usually did, longer than it should have. His stomach ached, and he turned in early that night.