Disclaimer: Still own nothing.
Author's Note: Christmas time disfunction with the Winchesters.
It was tradition. That's all there is to it. Sam settled down first, settled in, with a house and a wife and a couple of kids. Despite being the younger brother, Sam was the adult, the grown up. And everyone knows that being settled and grown means you have to play host at family gatherings. That's just the way it is.
Every Christmas for the past fifteen years the family, long before there were five kids to round it out, had gathered over at Sam and Sarah's. Even though the Winchesters never really celebrated Christmas. And Sarah was half Jewish (the other half simply not religious).
It was tradition.
And what had started, mostly at Ava's insistence, because really she was nothing if not a small and excitable child around the holidays, as a quaint little get together, a reason to sit around and get drunk off nasty ass drinks like egg nog and hot toddies, had now become much more. Now there was a tree. And dozens upon dozens of neatly wrapped presents beneath it. And perfectly cut gingerbread men, courtesy of Sarah and Rachel, two perfectionist peas in a pod. And sloppily decorated, heavily icing laden sugar cookies, in shapes that occasionally resembled a reindeer or a candy cane, all the work of John and Michael, with a bit of help from their mother since neither had been allowed around the oven after Michael put his goldfish, bowl and all, in it to give him a sauna. The smell remained for days.
Christmas is, after all, in this day and age, a time for children. And since the Winchesters had never been afforded the opportunity to be children, to sit on Santa's lap or bake cookies with their mom, or even have a tree, complete with tacky colored lights and homemade ornaments, they made damn sure they'd make up for that by giving it all to their kids.
So long as Maya drops the attitude. And Michael stops pilfering cookies after being told he's had enough. And John stops insisting that they all sing Christmas carols, bursting into tears the minute his father smirks and says no way in hell.
And really, if Rachel's Christmas Nazi routine goes any further, the holiday may get canceled all together. Forever.
"What did you do to her?" the teen exclaims, first words of greeting as Dean and Ava arrive with the kids.
Hugs go round as everyone's welcomed in – you'd think they hadn't seen each other in months at least, though it's been merely days – and parcels are passed into waiting arms, Sam taking gifts into the living room before heading outside to help Dean in with more. Sarah accepts platters of food from the boys, noticing right away the torn saran wrap and large empty stop on the plate of cookies from Michael. And Rachel, mouth still agape, eyes wide with a horrified shock they hadn't known in hours – since Maya hung tinsel in clumps instead of evenly spreading it like a normal human being would do – accepted the baby from Ava's heavy arms.
"What do you mean?" she asks as she hands Samantha off.
"She's dressed like a pumpkin!"
"That's because she is one," John says simply, preparing to tote coats and scarves, gloves and mittens, upstairs.
Rachel scurries into the kitchen, hot on the heels of her mother and aunt, and says, with as much grave audacity as any Winchester could muster, "This doesn't fit the set theme."
Ava laughs lightly as she begins to rummage around the kitchen, foraging for the necessary equipment to prepare her part of the meal. "The set theme?"
"Christmas," she lets out in near squeal, one hand on hip, the other still balancing the baby carrier.
"Well, the boys like the pumpkin."
"Yes, but it's Christmas."
"I know but – "
"It. Is. Christmas," she bites out through clenched teeth.
And Sarah knows exactly where this is going, because they've been there so many times already, today, yesterday, hell since Thanksgiving when Rache informed her that they were getting up at five the following morning to shop. "Rachel, leave it alone," she says sternly, already more than fed up with little miss perfect.
But that didn't work two weeks ago when she said to her father, "I don't care if you do fall off the roof, you'll recover. Christmas won't if Rudolph's crooked." Or last week when she nearly sucker punched a woman at the grocery store over the last bottle of vanilla. Or yesterday when, God help them all, she revealed personalized Santa hats for the entire family to wear. Bedazzled, mind you.
So why in the world Sarah would have thought that would work… "Never mind, I'll take care of it," she says as she leaves the room, baby and all, in a huff.
Ava gives her sister-in-law a look of absolute seriously? before returning to her search for the garlic press.
"I don't know what's gotten into her lately," Sarah says with a sigh. "I mean, one minute she's this moody, morose teenager. And just as soon as I start to get used to that, she walks downstairs with no eyeliner and a list of things that need to be done for Christmas. Stupid fucking holiday."
"Woah, easy there," Ava snickers.
"She's driving me insane."
"Yeah, I can see that," she remarks, eyeing the head of lettuce Sarah's laying a meat cleaver to.
She takes a deep breath and almost lets loose with a chortle of her own when a crashing, screaming, banging, crying noise breaks out in the other room. Both women go to investigate and find Michael in tears, Michael for a change, Maya standing over broken shards of hand blown Santa – the same one she said was giving her the evil eye and wouldn't make it through the night, surprise, surprise, if he kept it up – and Rachel looming, eyes wide and fiery, over them all. On her hip little Samantha beats a rhythm out with her chubby hands, steadily thumping her older cousin on the arms, shoulder, neck. But she doesn't seem to notice, too busy staring her sister down.
"She killed my pumpkin," Michael cries, screams. "She killed my pumpkin!"
"Oh, no, honey, it's fine," Ava coos as she scoops her boy into her arms. Looking over at the baby she can see that Rachel changed her, a red and white striped jumper that Ava didn't even remember her owning riding up over her diaper. "She just changed clothes is all," she tries with a hopeful smile.
But to no avail. "I want my pumpkin!"
Seemingly oblivious to Michael's turmoil over his sister's wardrobe, Rachel and Maya continue their stare down, each standing tall and steady on either side of the room, as one boy cowers in the corner, the other wailing in his mother's arms. Until Sam and Dean enter, making the mistake of stopping in the doorway and asking, "What's going on?" That's when all hell breaks loose.
"Pumpkin! Pumpkin! Pumpkin," reverberating through the room as Michael flings himself at his father, causing Dean to stumble into his brother, both then sending presents falling to the floor, one of which cha-chinks like broken glass.
"Son of a – " from Dean's mouth, an innate response to being thrown off one's feet, is enough to send John into fits of tears as well, prompting him to run for his mother, though blindly, fear and angst and water logged eyes preventing him from seeing clearly. In fact the only one who can see what's coming, what with Dean and Ava being preoccupied with their son, Sam busy collecting the felled gifts as best he can, and Rachel looking at nothing but her sister's steady eyes, is Sarah.
But she's too far away to react in time, lunging forward as though she might be able to catch them as John crashes into Maya, sending them both down, hard, right on top of the shards of broken Santa.
And it's been a long time since she, or anyone, has heard Maya cry, but even over all the other noise, the carols from the radio and the obnoxious little automatronic ornaments, and the resounding shrieks already present, now even louder, Sarah can hear, feel, the pain of her youngest.
Ava scoops John up and off his cousin, quickly checks him over and determines he's fine, Maya having broken his fall, and hands him off to no one in particular as she moves to gather Maya in her arms. And of course, in classic mother-speed, Sarah is at her side as well, checking for injuries on her child just as Ava had naturally done for hers.
The good news is, the boys stopped crying almost immediately, shocked into silence by a thing they hadn't witnessed, well, ever. Because they weren't there three years ago when Maya jumped from a tree and broke her arm. And that was the last time she had cried.
"What the hell?" Dean booms, setting Michael down and pulling John over next to him, just to keep them out of the way. "She alright?"
Ava nods to him, her hand instinctively twining through Sarah's hair, trying to calm her as she shakily coos to her daughter. Sam kneels down to take a look, sees Sarah's hand come up bloody, and feels his heart leap into his throat. Because blood's never a good thing, but in his experience it's so often been way worse than that.
"C'mere baby," he says, voice soft and steady. And he reminds himself as he lifts her into his lap that it's just a little glass, nothing serious, nothing like what he and Dean might have seen at her age.
She wraps her arms around his neck and leaks hot tears onto his shoulder. And snot too, he imagines. And he lets his fingertips, sadly adept as they are for finding even the tiniest of injuries, too much practice over the years, trace around her skin. And sure enough, he finds some shards poking out, high up on her thigh underneath her dress.
He sighs deeply, eyes connecting with Sarah's in silent communication. She's all right, don't worry. Sarah leans forward to pry her daughter away so she might lead her upstairs for a quick clean up, but Maya's hold is strong, she's not letting her dad go. So Sam swings one arm around her back as his other scoops underneath her as best he can without touching any wounds, and he stands awkwardly with a groan. Eight-year-olds aren't that heavy, but she's as big as he was at that age, and that's exactly what he tells himself as he nearly topples over. It's not just that he's getting old.
"I'll take care of it," he says as he traipses up the steps with his baby in his arms.
No one notices Rachel, standing in the exact same spot as before, Samantha still balanced and happy on one hip. No one sees the look of absolute horror on her face as she remains motionless, watching others clean up the mess. Ava with the broom and dustpan. Dean enlisting the help of the boys in placing the scattered gifts by the tree, avoiding the glass of course. Sarah wiping up tiny rivulets of blood from the wood floor.
As quickly as it began, it seemed to have ended. Ava and Sarah returning to the kitchen to finish up dinner, Michael following behind in full on stealth mode, eager to filch a cookie off the counter. John, still seeming a bit freaked, demanded, by means of a trembling lipped pout that Dean stay with him and watch TV. And still Rachel stands.
It's not until the music is off, television on, and Dean and his son are both seated on the couch, that she moves, turning awkwardly toward her uncle and saying, "I'm sorry."
He looks up at her and cocks his head, a question in itself. But instead of inquiring as to what she's sorry for, he asks, "What happened to my pumpkin?" and is met with a quick crumbling of her face.
"I'm sorry," she says again, voice cracking.
He pats the cushion next to him, invites her to sit. And of course, she does, repositioning the baby on her lap and laying her own head on her uncle's shoulder. He throws his arm around her and strokes her hair absently as he says, "Michael likes the costume. Tried telling him Halloween's over, but he kept calling her his pumpkin and it was just so damn cute." He watches the TV as he speaks, they all do, even Sammy who smiles wide when George Bailey enters. "She'll grow out of it soon. That's all. Babies grow up fast."
Rachel nods her assent, sniffling. "I know."
"It sucks, huh?" he asks simply, playing with his daughter's red bootied foot.
"What?"
He sighs long and deep. "Growing up."
She leans back into him a bit further, remembering how it felt to sit and watch movies with him like this back in the day, back when she was a kid. Back when times like the holidays were all about her just having fun, and getting presents. Back when she didn't have to worry about making things perfect for everyone, because back then they were all so busy making it perfect for her.
"Yeah," she says with a sigh to match her uncle's. "Yeah, it does."
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It's two hours later by the time dinner's done and the kids have crashed. Ava helps the boys upstairs to Maya's room, where they'll stay the night, sleeping soundly for at least a few hours following a pretty heavy duty sugar high. It takes both Sarah and Rachel to wrangle Maya up the stairs and into the room she'll share with her sister, and that makes Dean giggle under his breath because her peculiar state is entirely his fault, having given her some vicodin he had on him – old habits hard to break. He made her promise not to tell her mom and dad, but he did tell Rache that she shouldn't worry about being woken up this Christmas Eve by an annoying little sister, she'll be out like a light.
Sam and Dean collapse onto the couch and eye the relatively sparse offerings under the tree, both thinking, dreading, the same thing, digging presents out of all their hiding spots and putting them out. "You think it's weird?" Sam asks casually.
Dean takes a pull on his beer before responding. "What?"
"Working so hard to make the kids believe in Santa. You know, when we try to keep them from knowing about, or believing in…other things."
"Nope," he says with a shrug.
They hear a light crash and giggling erupt from upstairs. Sam glances over at his brother and narrows his eyes. "By the way, I know you gave Maya something."
He snorts indignantly. "Said she was in pain."
"Yeah, well."
"Yeah, well, if I left it up to you, you'd have given a chewable baby aspirin, you big paranoid girl."
"Excuse me, not wanting my daughter drugged does not make me a big paranoid girl."
Dean makes a psh noise and sets down his bottle, glances over at the portacrib with a sleeping pumpkin inside and says, "You know I wouldn't give her anything she couldn't handle."
And it was true, he did know that, but spending Christmas Eve digging glass out of his daughter's ass had made him a bit more protective. And perhaps a bit more cynical.
They both turn back to the television to catch the last few minutes of the movie. "You remember how may times we saw this growing up?" he asks with a smile, good memories being a rarity when it came to his and Dean's childhood.
"Considering it was on network TV every year, so we could see it no matter what shitty flea-bag motel we were in? A lot."
"I remember Dad watching it with us," he says, far off voice.
Dean turns to him questioningly, not because he doesn't remember, just because he never thought Sam did. Because it didn't go on for too long, not once John found out how much evil enjoys causing trouble on holy days. Typically their Christmases were spent locked inside the hotel with enough food for a couple of days and enough channels to get them by.
There was no Santa for them, but for the one in Miracle on 34th Street. No Rudolph and reindeer on their roofs, only in Claymation reruns. And there was no wonderful life, not really, not for them.
"It was his favorite," Dean mutters, almost too quiet to hear.
"I know."