"Do you have anything left in that flask of yours?" he asks.
Dean passes the flask, which is still half full, to Keith without question, then turns to Lance. "It takes a lot more than this to get me hungover, man. I promise. You'd have to put alcohol in an IV and pump it into me if you wanted to do that." Lance rolls his eyes and when Keith is sure Lance will see, he takes a large swig from the flask, Lance almost shrieks.
"Keith! Your still recovering, you can't drink yet!" Lance takes it from him and holds it away, Keith furrows his brow.
"I'm an adult Lance, and I wanna drink." Keith tries to take it back but Lance holds it further away from his short friend. "Curse my short limbs." Keith says right before he swiftly changes position on the couch reaches across Lances body and barely touches the flask. "Hand it over." Keith says, one arm wrapped around Lance's.
"No." Lance moves into the seat Keith used to be and holds it the other way. "I won't allow it." Keith swivels around, ignoring the music to a white Christmas starting and reaches for the flask. neither of them fully realizing the position they have put themselves in. Keith straddling his hips and upper body pressed up against Lance's as he reaches for the flask being held out of reach.
"Son of a bitch, Keith, at least buy him dinner first." Dean says. The two boys freeze. Lance looks down and turns red, he shoves the flask into Keith's hand and they falls into the coach at least five inches away, which is as much room as they can get without squishing Cas. Lance and Keith in each others seats.
"Sorry." they both mumble as the credits start to roll.
"The alcohol's not gonna hurt him, Lance." Dean says, trying to sound reassuring. "It's a cure-all, no matter how sick you might feel. At least, that's what Dad used to say. And he wasn't wrong. It works great."
"I gave it back." Lance says pointing to the flask in Keith's hands as he takes another sip. Keith licks his lips.
"This is good, Lance hasn't let me drink in so long." Keith smirks at lance. "It's been like five years." he says looking back to Dean.
"I still don't want anyone hungover in the morning." Lance says and Keith hands it over to Dean.
"He hasn't let you drink?" Dean looks like he can imagine few higher crimes. "You're an adult! I've been drinking since I was seven years old." He turns to Lance. "Dude, that's not normal. He's over twenty-one. It's completely legal."
"I know, but we made a pact, we were both not gonna drink for a whole year and we just got out of the habit, it's not like I wouldn't let him, it just never came up, and I bought some of that eggnog for tomorrow, it was supposed to be the first drop we've both had since then." Lance explains. Keith suddenly feels kind of bad. So he changes the subject.
"How about we leave some cookies out for Santa, eat some dinner, and go to bed so we can wake up at five in the morning and open presents like Lance makes me do every year."
"Leave cookies out for Santa?" Dean asks. "I thought they only did that in movies." Lance promptly face palms and shakes his head.
"Nope, it's what lots of people do, at least my family always did it, it was my favorite part of Christmas." Lance tries to explain.
"Lance, you said five different things were your favorite." Keith points out. Lance smiles.
"Well maybe they all are, mullet."
Dean shakes his head. "You could always cut it while he's asleep if you want. I mean, you share a room." He pulls out a pocket knife and holds it out. "This one's real sharp, should work fine. Might not even wake him up."
Lance's eyes widen at the knife. He looks to Keith then Cas, then Dean then the knife again.
"If you even try, I will cut you." Keith says easily, "and then shave you bald." Keith adds glancing at Lance.
"Well that settles it." Lance states. "I'm not going to be cutting Keith's hair in his sleep anytime soon." Lance says, even though he wasn't going to any way, he kind of like his mullet, but he would never say so out loud.
Dean shrugs and puts the knife away. "Suit yourself." Lance laughs nervously and glances back over to Keith.
"Alright, let's get a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa." Lance stands up and leads the way to the kitchen, picking up the snacks he brought in with him.
Dean doesn't follow. Instead he pulls out some salt and carefully places a line across the fireplace. Cas helps them sort some cookies on the plate and they set it next to the tree with a glass of milk.
"And now, we eat some food, and go to bed, what do you guys want for dinner?" Lance asks placing his hands on his hips.
"I can make pancakes." Dean suggests, almost looking embarrassed.
"I love pancakes!" Lance claps, Keith smiles and nods in agreement. "I can cook up some bacon to go with it and everything!"
Dean nods happily. "If bacon's what kills you, you still win." he says, then heads over to the stove. He pauses by Lance on his way and says quietly so only he can hear, "About the drinking thing… I'm sorry I screwed it up. I didn't know." Then he just starts grabbing stuff for pancakes like he hadn't said a word.
"It's fine." Lance mutters opening the fridge to get the bacon as Keith and Cas sit at the table. As the two of them get cooking Keith can't help but watch Lance move about the kitchen.
"Can you put gummy bears on mine?" Cas asks. "Not in it, that'd be gross, but on it? And whipped cream."
Dean smiles, looking for all the world like a mother with a sugar addicted kid. "Yeah, sure."
"Do we even have gummy bears?" Keith asks. Lance perks up.
"Oh yeah, there's some in my closet, hold on I'll go get them." Lance runs to his room to get them.
"Of course there's some in his closet." Dean shakes his head. "He's probably got the missing Death Star plans in his closet."
"No." Keith shakes his head. "He keeps those in his nightstand drawer." Keith smirks.
Dean grins too. People really shouldn't give him openings like this. "You would know. Are his underwear in there too?"
"W-what?" Keith stutters turning red. "Why would you-, I just- I mean- it's not like I- ugh never mind." Keith folds his arms on the table and plops his head down into them mumbling something about Lance, and his nightstands drawer.
Dean puts a plate with pancakes down in front of him. "You know you never denied it, right?" Keith lifts his head to take a pancake in his mouth and chew on it without using his hands, placing his chin on his arms.
"What is going on out here." Lance walks in holding a bag of gummy bears. He looks at Keith, then Dean, then Cas, but no one gives him an explanation. "What exploded?"
"Nothing recently," Dean hands him a pancake and takes the bag of gummy bears, "but that can be arranged if you want."
Cas looks up. "No. Dean, I swear, if you blow up one more thing just because somebody gave you the idea, I'll lock you in your room and I won't let you out for three weeks."
Dean just shakes his head and sits down at the table too. "That threat doesn't scare me, Cas. It's already been done, and I'm assuming that you would feed me regular meals, so it'll be even better than last time. Now shut up and eat your food." He dumps half the bag of gummy bears on top of Cas's pancakes. Lance grabs the whipped cream from the cupboard and puts a large swirl on top of the gummy bears.
"Eat up everyone! The sooner we go to sleep the sooner Santa can come." Lance sings as he grabs the butter and syrup from the fridge.
"Santa is scary." Dean says simply. "Have you ever had an actual conversation with one of those guys in suits on street corners? They're absolute pervs. All of them. One of them tried to drug Sammy and me and put us in his van, but I shot him. And even if Santa was real, you realize he would see everything? How can you be comfortable taking a shower?" Lance slaps a large piece of butter down onto Deans pancakes.
"Well, they aren't the real Santa anyway, and you know what, I agree with the whole he sees everything thing, he is a stalker and should be arrested." Lance sits down and applies butter and syrup to his pancakes.
"Lance, are you ok?" Keith asks with a slight smirk. "Or are you even Lance? Who are you and what have you done with my friend." Keith stands and points a fork at him.
"I'm just saying." Lance shrugs taking Keith's plate and putting his half eaten pancake back on it so he could prepare it for consumption. "Now I'm gonna check on the bacon." Lance hands the plate back to Keith and stands.
"Christo." Dean says experimentally, looking for the tell-tale flinch that means demonic possession, since that's usually why anybody acts different, but there was nothing, so he turns to Keith and shrugs. "I guess he's all clear."
Keith looks between Lance, Dean and his food for a moment then sits down, only to look back at Lance as he opens the oven to pull out the bacon. When Dean catches his eye and wiggles his eyebrows Keith looks back to his food, red spreading across his face once more as he pokes his food with his fork.
"Do you want any more?" Dean asks. "'Cause I can make more." Sometimes, when he went into hardcore 'taking care of everyone' mode, it was hard to get him to quit.
"I'm good, but who wants bacon?" Lance brings over the plate full of bacon to the table.
"I always want bacon." Dean says simply.
Cas nods and says, "Sure, some."
Dean grins. "And you said it was going to kill me."
hey my friends, it's me Sam, I know I was gone for like... a year, but stuff happened, if anyone actually reads this crap, let me know what you think! love you all! -Sam