A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There is a more detailed note about it on my profile, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "Thanksgiving at Bobby's" and "Darkness Rising," but can be read as standalone. This story will be updated every day until December 25th (or possibly 26th if I come up with an epilogue.

Notes: Cas and Sam centric, slash and pre-slash. Plenty of Dean too, mostly in a humorous capacity. Please enjoy.

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December 1

Dean had had his doubts about this bell crap from the second Cas landed next to their table. He'd dealt with enough angels and demons by now to know he had no interest in being stuck between them, and whatever Castiel said about the prophet from Seventeen Magazine, Dean still felt like somebody somewhere in this debacle had at least one screw loose. Maybe it was Dean himself, for actually driving thirteen hours through three states because a bossy angel with bacon breath told him to.

But all the little doubts bouncing around his brain like Ping-Pong balls turned into one gigantic what the fuck when he put the car in park in front of a blue two-story house decked out in full suburban style, from the white mailbox crisply labeled The Gerbers to the yuppie deck with wrought iron railings perched on top of the two-car garage. Boulder had apparently had a massive snowfall at the beginning of the week, and most of it was still hanging around; it was about up to the knees of the army of Christmas lawn ornaments that had invaded the front lawn, featuring an unsettling herd of faceless light-up deer and a truly disturbing inflatable snowman that was probably six feet tall, grinning at them under a fat black hat. Dean eased the Impala into the driveway and parked but left the car running, in case they needed to make a quick exit.

"Are you sure this is the address?" he asked.

Sam had been kind of a bitch all morning, alternating between preoccupied silence and telling Dean off whenever he tried to suggest that they plead out on this one and let Cas sic these bells on someone else—but for once, Sam seemed to be on the same page he was, peering up at the house through the passenger window.

"3016 Briarwood Drive," he said, waving the scrap of paper with the address between two fingers.

Dean craned his head to look out the back window and frowned at the rest of the snow-covered cul-de-sac spread out behind them. "I don't get it, Sam. Where's the sleazy motel?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't think we're staying in a sleazy motel this time."

Dean didn't like the sound of that much. Maybe it was because he'd learned how to drive almost as soon as he learned how to walk, but neighborhoods made him feel cagey, like he should be climbing a fence somewhere and making a run for it. Sam was getting out of the car, though, stretching his ridiculously long limbs as he looked around, so Dean reluctantly did the same, shutting off the Impala and stepping out onto the driveway. Sam bent to pick up a frosty newspaper from beneath the car and Dean opened the mailbox and peered inside, then shut it again, shoving his hands down in his pockets to hide them from the chill air.

"I don't like this, Sam. Something hinky's going on here. Since when do angels own property? And who the hell are the Gerbers?"

"The Gerbers are your hosts."

For one crazy second Dean thought the inflatable snowman was talking to him. Then he realized that Castiel had been standing in the yard the whole time, poking out of the snow like an out-of-season marigold and half-hidden from the driveway by the bulk of stay-puft Frosty. Sam jumped a little and steadied himself against the roof of the Impala, and Dean swore under his breath, and then decided to repeat it loud enough to give the angel a piece of his mind.

"Damn your bones, Cas. How long have you been standing there like some kind of stalkerazzi?"

Castiel did his little head-tilt thing, which Dean had long figured out was code for your ridiculous human words don't compute in my universal translator. "I have been here approximately seven hours," he answered, like the robot he was. "The woman who lives next door approached several times to ask whether I needed assistance, but I declined."

"Oh, good—so you've already met the neighbors," Dean muttered, tucking his keys into his pocket and finally slamming the driver's side door. But Sam had something else on his mind, judging by the way he tiptoed toward Castiel with a glance over his shoulder at the quiet house.

"Wait—our hosts? We're going to be staying with someone?"

Dean already had the keys back in his hand, because Hell would freeze over and demons would actually ascend before he shacked up with a house full of Gerbers—but Castiel just frowned, shaking his head once like he was trying to reset whatever software was in charge of his brain. "Perhaps I misspoke. This house belongs to the Gerbers, but it has been prepared for you. The Gerbers have no need of it at present."

Sam blinked at that, while Dean shot the angel a full-on scowl, tired of vague answers that felt more like they belonged in a mob movie than Interview with an Angel. "What the hell's that mean, they don't need it? Where are they?" Then something occurred to him, and Dean's mouth fell open, a feeling of horror gnawing at his gut. "Cas, did you Shanghai the Gerbers? Are they locked in a basement somewhere with water and rabbit pellets? 'Cause I don't know where you bought your moral compass, but that's just wrong, man, no matter whose bells you're trying to bag."

Sam shot him a pissy look for his phrasing, which admittedly came out a little dirtier than Dean had meant it to. Castiel just tipped his head the other way, like a really slow bobble-head doll. "Harold Gerber is a pious man," he said, as if that explained everything. "As soon as the bells were discovered to be missing, an angel entered his dreams and asked for permission to use his residence for the Lord's work. He consented, of course. Then he and his family won an all-expenses-paid, indefinite vacation package to Maui." Castiel glanced up at the cloudless sky, as if gauging the time by the position of the sun. "Their plane left this morning."

Dean snorted under his breath. "No fucking kidding. You know what, Cas? Next time we get the package vacation, and the Gerbers can take care of the nasty demon shit. How's that sound?"

Cas opened his mouth like he was actually going to answer that—God help them, eleven months and the guy still struggled with rhetorical questions—but fortunately Sam stopped that nonsense before it could start, clearing his throat and glancing between them as he ran a hand through his girly hair. "Uh—guys? We should probably take this inside. Someone's watching us from the house next door." He jerked his head at the brown house on their right, and Dean looked over in time to see a silhouette at the front window before the lacy curtains were pulled tight, concealing whoever it was. Dean shook his head.

"Nosy neighbors. Welcome to suburban hell," he muttered. He got no response, though, as Sam was already out of earshot, trailing Castiel up the carefully shoveled steps to the front door. Dean shook his head, because he wouldn't be caught dead shoveling the walk of this two-story deluxe mousetrap—any more snow that fell could stay where it fucking landed. He caught up with Sam and Cas in time to hear the big blue and white snowman hung on the door burst into song as Castiel inserted a key and pushed the door open.

Two steps in, Dean realized the Gerbers were loaded. Four steps in, he realized Castiel was lying about Maui—the Gerbers had obviously been kidnapped by an army of smiling snowman decorations, which had taken over the house in their absence. The damn things were everywhere, from the wooden statue in the entryway where Sam paused to toe off his shoes to the pile of snowman pillows decorating the L-shaped wraparound couch in the living room that was right up the stairs. Even most of the ornaments on the Christmas tree were snowmen, their bulbous heads grinning at Dean out of the full pine branches. The room had a collection of snowglobes that should have featured on an episode of "Hoarders," most of them snowmen, too, including one where just the snowman's head was sticking up into the globe like some kind of frozen astronaut ready to take the invasion into space. Dean picked up one of the snowman pillows and then almost threw it across the room when the thing started dancing, practically gyrating in his hands and blaring out "Frosty the Snowman" like a bad ringtone. He spent ten seconds trying in vain to turn it off, and then he just shoved it behind the rest of the snowman couch pillows, which only muffled it a little.

On the landing below him, Dean could hear Sam asking all the boring questions—house rules, what day the garbage truck came by, something about the thermostat—but Dean knew top priority was checking out the house, because he was going to have to find somewhere to sleep in all this baloney. Aside from the couch and the tree, the living room hosted a plasma-screen and a gas fireplace set into a white marble mantle, hung with four kitschy stockings. A door onto the patio led to a sloping backyard that sported a treehouse and a concrete basketball court under feet of snow.

He decided to try his luck in the basement, even though it meant edging past Sam and Cas on the stairs—Cas was doing a pretty good impression of a real estate agent, babbling about square footage and modern appliances, while Sam nodded along like a newlywed trying to decide if the neighborhood had a good enough school system for her 2.5 future children. Dean followed another flight of stairs down to the bottom floor, where he finally decided for good that the Gerbers had kids—the family room had an air hockey table as well as an even bigger TV, and the two doors at the end of the hall had the names "TINA" and "JOSHUA" hung on them in block letters, Tina's accompanied by a pink sign declaring "No boys allowed!" Dean only had to crack the door to get a sense of the unicorn and teen idol apocalypse that had exploded all over those walls. Josh's room had its own TV at least, not to mention more game systems than Dean could actually name—but it also had that persistent teenager smell of Cheetos and dirty socks, and while Dean probably could have gotten over that, he had some issues about sleeping in some other dude's bed. He shut the door and headed back upstairs.

Sam and Cas were in the kitchen now, attached to the living room by way of a dining room filled with a long table under a huge-ass chandelier. Dean noticed a nativity scene set up on the buffet under the window to the backyard and had to convince himself not to vomit all over the Turkish rug. There was a picture of the Gerbers hung right at the top of the stairs, and Dean paused there for a moment to stare at the family portrait. They were posed with the Boulder foothills as a backdrop, each of them wearing a different color of the Easter pastel rainbow—beer gut Dad in forest green, botox Mom in petunia pink, boy band Josh in barf blue and tweeny Tina in baby chick yellow. They looked like the models from the cover of one of those family board games. From the kitchen, Sam asked an unintelligible question and Cas answered something about being free to use anything in the house, including the clothes; Dean made a face at the picture and headed down the upstairs hallway. There was no way he was touching the Gerbers' duds. If Sam and Cas wanted to dress up and play house, well, that was their business, but as far as he knew Colorado didn't have a marriage clause for Sasquatch and stalker guardian angels.

Then Dean pushed open the door at the end of the hall, and knew instantly that he had hit the jackpot. Yeah, the master bedroom was suffering from the same snowman invasion as the rest of the house, but he could deal with that for the king-sized bed covered in heaps of pillows and the forty-inch flatscreen TV hung on the wall right across from it. A sliding glass door led out onto the deck over the garage, and from up here Dean could see that the railing was hung with hundreds of icicle lights, dull green garlands wrapped down every post. The master bathroom smelled like one of those gay candle stores in the mall, probably because there were like five dishes of red and gold potpourri perched all over the counter and the windowsill—but it was all worth it for the bathtub, an enormous shell-shaped tub complete with Jacuzzi jets. Dean grinned to himself. He thought about licking something, which was how he'd always called dibs when he and Sam were young enough that a little spit sent Sam into conniptions; ultimately he picked the more mature approach and sauntered back down the hallway, searching for his wayward brother.

Apparently the kitchen was Sam's new favorite room—he and Cas were still in there, chatting it up like two girls in home ec class. When Dean came in and leaned his elbows on the counter of the breakfast bar that separated the dining room from the massive kitchen with too many cabinets, Sam was bent over with his head in the oven, Castiel waiting behind him with his classic blank expression. Sam stood up and brushed his hair back behind his ears.

"Is it a self-cleaning oven?" Sam asked, resettling a snowman dishtowel on the bar across the oven door. Dean wondered what the hell Sam was planning to do to the oven that it would need cleaning, and also when somebody had invented ovens that could do that—but his news was more important than any of that, so he broke in before Cas could divulge that snore-worthy piece of information, drumming on the marble countertop to get Sam's attention.

"Hey, Sammy," he said, grinning when Sam's eyes flickered over to find his. "I call dibs on the master bedroom. And before you ask, I ain't sharing."

That got a reaction from Sam finally, as his brother turned away from the kitchen to face Dean with a frown. "So where am I supposed to sleep?" he asked.

Dean shrugged, fighting to keep his smile under wraps. "I thought you'd want to stay in Tina's room. It's perfect for you." Sam put his bitchface on, but Dean kept going, shoving his hands down in his pockets. "She's got a canopy bed. And a poster for that Beaver kid. It's like teeny bopper heaven."

Castiel looked confused at that, but Dean ignored him—Cas never could keep up with a good old-fashioned Sam thrashing. Sam just rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'll sleep on the couch. Marcie Gerber left us a note," he went on, waving a piece of snowflake stationery covered in neat black print. "They've stocked the fridge for us and she told the neighbors we're friends of the family who'll be staying for a while. Oh, and she left the schedule for their church. In case we're not sure where to worship." Sam raised his eyebrows and Dean made a face at him, moving back into the dining room to look out the window.

"Sounds like a great time. Maybe Cas'll go as your date."

Dean didn't hear Sam's comeback to that, if he made one at all. He was distracted all of a sudden by an enormous box on the dining room table, covered in worn black leather and so long it ran almost the full length of the table. He was positive it hadn't been there when he surveyed the dining room before, and he shot a suspicious glance at the angel in the kitchen before reaching out to touch it, the leather pebbled under his fingertips.

"What the hell is this?" Dean asked.

"That's mine," Castiel told him.

Dean shook his head. "I always suspected you slept in a coffin, you creepy fucker."

"Dean," Sam snapped from the kitchen—his little brother was apparently in full-out bitchy housewife mode, an amazing transformation considering they'd only been inside ten minutes. Castiel just stepped around the breakfast bar and moved to stand next to Dean.

"It is a vessel of containment," he said, unhooking the golden latch on one side of the box and flipping the lid open. Dean was surprised to see that the inside was all red velvet, with spaces pushed down into it that looked the right shape for a set of handbells. The two bells Castiel had brought with him to the diner were already inside, nestled together at one end. Castiel closed the lid and latched it again. "The bells will be stored here after you collect them. It should prevent them from gathering negative energy while you're here. Anything else would be too dangerous." His eyes cut over to Sam, who was leaning against the counter—Dean had seen him do the same thing in the diner, and it sort of pissed him off for some reason. He pulled Castiel's focus back to him with a punch to the angel's shoulder.

"Hey. So how does this work, exactly? You drop in every other day or something, and in the meantime we try and magically find these bells?"

He'd expected another vague answer from Castiel, something about bells resonating and how there was no try. What he got was the angel tilting his head to one side and peering up at him with narrowed eyes, scrutinizing his face like he was tracking invisible bugs or something.

"I will not be… dropping in," Castiel told him, the words awkward as usual on his tongue. "As I told you in the diner, I have been assigned to stay close. I will be here for the duration of the mission."

Dean's brain struggled to make that compute, but fortunately Sam was on the case, stepping out of the kitchen and joining their little dining room huddle at last. "Wait. You mean you're going to stay with us the whole time we're looking for the bells? You're going to stay here?"

Castiel's forehead furrowed, his gaze swinging over to find Sam's. "I didn't realize that wouldn't be acceptable."

"No—no, it's fine!" Sam said, stumbling all over himself like the teenage girl Dean had always known he was inside. "Of course it's fine. That would be great, Cas. You're more than welcome." He shot the angel a big-eyed smile, dimples and all, and Dean had to fight down the urge to gag.

"Don't swoon, Sammy—there's a granite counter behind you," he said, earning identical bitchfaces from both of his companions. Which was so adorable he could smother them both. Dean rolled his eyes. "And what the hell, Cas? I thought you said you couldn't use your angel mojo on this one."

"I can't," Castiel affirmed. "Except in an extreme emergency, I have been instructed to use as little power as possible, so as not to draw demonic attention."

Dean made a face of his own. "So what's the point of you being here, if you can't do anything?"

Sam kicked him in the shin again. It didn't hurt that badly, since Sam had his shoes off like a good houseguest—but on the other hand, it was the exact same place where Sam had kicked him yesterday, and Dean winced, hissing through his teeth.

"Okay, okay. Join the team. Whatever. But I stand by what I said—I ain't sharing with either of you."

Castiel nodded once, like he couldn't care less. "I will stay with Sam."

Dean glanced over his shoulder at the living room, eyebrows raised. "Well, good luck—that couch's gonna be a tight squeeze," he said. But when he turned back to find Castiel staring at his brother without so much as blinking, he got the horrible feeling that the angel hadn't taken that as a joke, and that was almost disturbing enough to make Dean want to take the couch instead, with or without the singing, dancing snowman.