The job was a bitch and a half.

What Harry hadn't told them was that the case involved a ghost on a fishing vessel. Being out on the Atlantic Ocean in December was bad enough. Being slammed around by the ghost was worse. When Sam nearly went over the side, Dean had had enough, and almost torched the captain's trunk (possessed object) right there on deck. But the ghost demanded his say, and it turned out to be important. The entire crew had secrets, some of them deadly.*

In the end, they came out of it all right, and headed home two days before Christmas.

"Oh, crap!" Dean said as they crossed the Kansas state line.

"What?"

"Do we have to buy them presents?"

"Who?" Sam was still thinking about the haunted ship.

"Them! Chuck and Lucifer! If they're still alive."

"Call."

"Not till we get closer. What the hell do you get an ex-God and a fallen archangel?"

"How should I know?"

They stopped at a Walmart and bought the required presents. Nothing too expensive, just a little something to say they cared. Which they had to admit they kind of did. Chuck, once he was out of angry God mode, was pathetically adorable, and Lucifer had a slacker charm that even Dean couldn't deny.

"I hope they remembered to feed Miracle," Dean said. He parked Baby in the garage and went around to what he thought of as their front door.

The lights were off.

The lights were never off. They had a generator that would keep the place going even if the whole state of Kansas was blacked out. Dean looked at Sam, eyebrows raised, and then he pulled out the small flashlight on his keyring. It was about the size of a AA battery, but it threw a lot of light, enough to get to the bottom of the stairs without killing themselves.

"What's going on?" Sam inquired.

Suddenly the place was flooded with light. "Surprise!"

As soon as their eyes adjusted, Dean and Sam saw the tree in the center of the room. The fully lit, fully decorated tree. In front of it were Chuck and Lucifer, grinning wildly. Miracle was sleeping on the red velour tree skirt.

"Wow," Dean said. "You guys didn't have to do this. I told you we'd put up the tree when we got back."

"Yeah, well, we thought we'd save you the trouble," said Chuck. "Huh? Huh?"

But Sam's eyes had caught on something troubling. About halfway up on the left side was a familiar red glass ball. "Um, where did you guys get the decorations?"

"Oh, in the storeroom," said Lucifer.

"Which boxes?"

"All the ones with an X on them. Xmas . . . Christmas . . . right?"

Sam looked at Dean with a sense of growing dread. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

"Tell us what?" asked Chuck.

"No," Dean told his brother. "That's why I said to wait till we got back!"

"Tell us what?"

"The ones with the X on them," said Dean, "are the cursed decorations."

"Who would curse Christmas decorations?"

"Dean," Sam said, looking past them at the tree, which was rustling.

"It doesn't matter! We've got to get these all down before-"

"Dean!"

Dean looked up at the tree. It was moving towards them, sliding on its trunk, dragging the tree skirt (and the dog, who was still sleeping) behind it. "Oh, crap! Get a flamethrower! Sam, you have any spells to stop this thing?"

"An all-purpose repellent spell."

"Do it."

"What do we do?" Lucifer asked.

Dean started to say something, but thought better of it. "Just stay out of the way."

"Sorry," said Chuck.

"It's my fault. I should have told you." Sam tossed him the flamethrower, and he checked that it was fueled up (they kept it full at all times) and ready to go. "Get back! Sam, the spell!"

Sam stepped in front of him and uttered something which sounded like a mix of Latin and Enochian. It did nothing to stop the slow but relentless progress of the renegade Christmas tree. "Nothing!"

Miracle woke up and ran in furious circles around the tree trunk, barking. The tree-monster barely took notice.

"Okay, I'm gonna light it up! Stand back!" Dean flicked the switch, and fire erupted in an arc which fell short by mere inches. "Too far! I'm gonna have to get closer! You guys get-"

"Look out!" Sam called, too late. The thing reached down with one of its branches and knocked Dean right off his feet. He landed in a sprawl at the foot of the stairs, on his back. The impact stunned him, and he dropped the flamethrower.

It slid across the floor to land at Lucifer's feet. He looked down at it, then up at the rampaging foliage threatening to tear them all apart.

He picked it up.

"What are you doing?" Chuck demanded of his son.

"Someone has to. They took us in after all the crap we piled on them. Can you distract it while I do the job?"

"Yeah." Chuck saw Miracle futilely scratching at the bark. "Sam, get the dog!"

Sam dove in under the thrusting branches and grabbed Miracle, retreating to the furthest corner of the room.

"Hey! Over here, you son of a birch!" Chuck stood on tiptoe and waved his arms to get the thing's attention.

The tree-monster stopped, branches suspended over Dean's supine form, and turned its upper branches toward the source of the shouting and waving.

"Yeah! Come and get me, ugly! Your mother was a wreath, and your father was a log cabin!"

"Sam, get Dean!" Lucifer called. He had his hand on the trigger, hoping he could work this thing. Shouldn't be too hard, right,?

Sam waited until the tree had started moving off in Chuck's direction, and then he put the dog down and made a running dive for his brother. "You okay?"

"I will be." Dean was still seeing double, but he'd been concussed before; he knew it would pass. "Where'd it go?"

Sam just pointed.

Chuck was leading the thing away, towards the door to the kitchen, a door the eight-foot tree would never fit through. It would provide cover, and also access to the kitchen fire extinguisher, which they would need if this went well. "That's it! Come on, bark for brains! I got your Tannenbaum right here! Hit him, Luci!"

He moved out of the way, and Lucifer raised the flamethrower and hit the switch. This time, he was close enough to ignite the thing.

There was a high-pitched scream of pain as the tree caught fire. Decorations rained down as it shook its branches, trying to put itself out and failing. Sam and Dean had crawled under the map table, Miracle huddled at their feet. Sam looked up at the burning tree and saw the red glass ball start to slide off its branch.

"The end of the world ball!"

"Go get it, tiger," said Dean, still woozy.

Sam ran out under the tree and tried to position himself under the shaking ball. It wasn't easy when the tree was rocking and convulsing wildly, but he kept his eye on the ball (just like summer softball league, he thought) and waited for the moment when it would fall free.

A flailing branch brushed against his shirt. Sam felt searing pain and smelled his own burning flesh. He reached down and beat the flames out with his bare hands, looking up again just in time to see the red glass ball come sailing down.

Under the table, Dean was praying. "Cas, or whoever's listening, please help us. Let him get it. Let him get it . . ."

The ball bounced off Sam's shoulder. He pivoted, reached out, and caught it before it could shatter on the floor.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

Sam dove back under the table with the ball clutched firmly in both hands as the burning tree collapsed. Once it stopped moving, Chuck darted out of the kitchen doorway and hit it with the fire extinguisher. Eventually, the fire went out.

In the silence that followed, they looked around at each other. Injuries: minimal. Lesson: learned. World: not ended. Again.

They bought a new tree (pathetic, scraggly, but definitely not possessed) and decorated it Christmas Eve with the non-cursed decorations. Then they stayed in, drank eggnog, and watched Die Hard.

"I just don't see how this is a Christmas movie," Lucifer protested.

"Don't even," said Sam, with a knowing look toward Dean.

"Ain't Christmas," Dean said, "till Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Plaza."

"Hmm. Okay."

When the closing credits were running, Dean turned to his two houseguests and said, "You guys did great. I mean with the tree. I should have told you about the cursed boxes. You were just trying to do something nice."

"We should have asked," said Chuck, "instead of just assuming."

"You want to open your presents now, or wait till tomorrow?"

"You got presents?" Chuck's eyes went wide. "Aw, you didn't have to get us anything!"

"You earned it," said Sam. "You've come a long way, and . . . you deserve a little something."

"But we didn't get you anything!"

"Doesn't matter," said Dean. He reached under his chair and pulled out two small rectangular objects wrapped in silver and gold paper. "You've earned this." He passed the smaller package to Lucifer, and the slightly bigger one to Chuck.

The former God opened his slowly and carefully; Luci just ripped, and was done first. "It's a Swiss army knife!"

"It's got everything a human could need for defense, tools, and just for fun. It does everything but make toast."

Chuck finally finished unfolding the paper around his gift. "A journal?"

"A Moleskine," said Sam. "Top of the line. There's a good quality pen in with it, too."

"You're a writer," said Dean. "Write."

"Wow, thanks, guys. You really didn't have to-"

"The thing about humans," Dean said, "is that sometimes they do nice things just to be nice. Not because they expect something from someone else. Remember that. Take it and run with it. People do a lot of mean crap to each other, but they have their moments."

They all stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.

"Are we supposed to . . . hug or something?" asked Lucifer.

"No!"

The two former celestial beings left at the end of January. Sam and Dean were willing to let them stay until March or April, when the worst of the winter storms were over, but they insisted that the sooner they got out there, the better.

"You'll always have a room here," said Dean.

"Just don't touch the TV," Lucifer nodded.

"Or the beer! Or the pie!"

"Bacon's still a go, right?"

"Hey, you keep your thieving devil hands off my bacon!" It was as close as Dean would get to admitting he liked the big lug. No hugs, no tears, just see you later and be careful out there.

"I just have one question," said Chuck, "but it's a big one. The big one, the one that no one's dared to ask."

"Shoot," said Sam.

"When we die - when we," he said, indicating himself and Lucifer, "die - what happens?"

A big question indeed. Sam and Dean looked at each other, at a loss.

"I don't know," said Sam. "If Jack's really been changing things, then . . . anything could happen."

"You'll be fine," said Dean. "Wherever you end up. Let's hope it's a long time from now. Remember to keep your eyes open, don't take crap from anyone . . . and call once in a while, would you?"

When they were gone, Sam and Dean settled back on the couch and opened a couple of beers.

"Where do you think they'll end up?" asked Dean. "Just out of curiosity."

"No idea," said Sam. "Wherever will take them."

"Probably not Heaven, then."

"Oh, no. No."

"Or Hell."

"Definitely not."

"What's left? The Empty?"

"I guess. Not our problem, though. It's up to them now."

"Yeah. Way above our pay grade."

They sat and drank and tried not to think about the big questions, the troublesome questions, the ones for which there were no easy answers.

*This story will eventually be told.