Well, I must admit, Saturday's crept up on me this week! And I just thought, 'oh, it's time to post another chapter!' Fortunately, this chapter was all ready to go - and finally we have reached Christmas! Chapter 17 is not yet ready to go, but I went to the London Film and Comic Con yesterday and so need to rest today, which is a great opportunity for writing! I hope you enjoy this rather cosy, lazy chapter.

Oh, and I've been imagining that Dean's hair is a bit like Jensen's is at the moment - those photos of the latest Jibcon! Hence Sam's reaction.

Chapter 16

"Sammy!"

"Dean?"

His brother shut the front door behind him, cutting off the icy draft. And then Sam lost no time crashing into Dean and wrapping his unfeasibly long arms around him completely. Hair tickled Dean's face and he was engulfed in warmth and familiarity and the spicey-floral scent of his brother's aftershave. He returned the breath-stealing squeeze as hard as he could, letting the hug stand for everything that Sam knew damn well he'd never say, but that he felt right down into his bones - deeper than that, in fact, because the way he felt about his brother would last longer than his bones.

Eventually, the squeeze eased off a bit and they both reached back-slapping stage, which was the signal to pull away and grin goofily at each other. In fact, Sam was looking at him like he was trying not to laugh, and making one of those squinched-eyebrow, smirky, bitch-faces, which meant he was going to give Dean a whole pile of crap about something. And his so-called little brother was looming over him more than ever.

"Shit, Sammy - have you grown some more?"

"No, Dean, of course I haven't grown!" He narrowed his eyes and scrutinised Dean, his mouth all pursed up. "Have you shrunk?"

Dean punched him in the arm, which was the only appropriate response.

"Ow! Dean! I just meant you look different. I mean," he waved a huge hand in front of Dean's face, "Wow. Just wow."

"What?" Dean looked down at himself. "What?" He looked pretty good, didn't he? One of his better pairs of jeans, a black T and a dark green button-down over the top, which was brand new. Cas had picked it out and if Cas said he looked good in it, then he did.

"All the… all that." Sammy waved annoyingly in his face again. "The shit you've given me over the years, Dean, and now look at you! Did you lose your clippers and your shaving kit?"

"Oh." Dean rubbed his jaw. He hadn't bothered shaving for a while. He'd trimmed his beard short, though. And Cas liked it. And he liked Dean's hair, which was maybe getting a bit long, but nothing compared to Sammy's braidable locks. Dean smoothed his hair down self-consciously and shrugged. "I can change how I look if I want to."

"You haven't, though, Dean. Not in like… ever."

"Yeah, well now I have." It was no big deal, anyway. Why did Sam have to make an issue of it? Brothers. Huh. "Anyway, what do you think of the place?"

"It's amazing, Dean! I can hardly recognise it!"

Dean inflated with pride in his home. "You like it?" He'd worked so hard to have it ready for Christmas. The hallway looked particularly good, with fairy lights and greenery woven into the bannisters and the uplighters on the walls softly glowing because he'd installed a dimmer switch, and the dark red carpet runner going all the way up the stairs and the hall floorboards sanded smooth and stained a rich, dark chestnut colour.

"It's fantastic," said Sam. "Really, Dean. I like it a lot."

"Thanks, Sammy." Dean slapped him on the back again. "You wait till you see the rest."

A croaky, meandering growl drifted out from the direction of the kitchen.

Dean gestured at Sam's bag. "Is that all you've got? I'll take it up to the guest room."

"I can take it if you show me where to go." The croaking rose and Sam frowned. "What's that? It sounds like… something in pain."

Dean listened. And smiled. He leant close to his brother and kept his voice low. "It's Cas. Singing."

"That's singing?"

"Yeah. Uh…" Dean glanced over his shoulder. The growly voice rose. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. "He likes Christmas songs. Don't tease him will you?"

Sam's expression changed. And Dean knew every quirk of those eyebrows, every twitch of those pointy lips. His brother was doing an amused-but-indulgently-mushy face.

"I won't tease him, Dean. Not if you don't want me to."

He wouldn't hold back on teasing his brother, though. Dean narrowed his eyes, not that warning Sammy to lay off had ever worked in the past.

"Hello, Sam."

Cas had emerged from the kitchen, flour in his hair and on his apron, one hand waving a greeting with a wooden spoon, the other encased in a fish-shaped oven mitt.

"Cas!"

The huge moose-man wrapped Dean's angel in a gigantic hug, apparently not caring about all the flour that was going to get transferred.

"Cas - he's grown some, hasn't he? Sammy's even more of a sasquatch than ever."

Cas stepped back, tucking his wooden spoon into his apron pocket so that he could hold Sam at arm's length and scrutinise his massive form. "Human's don't get taller once they've reached maturity, Dean."

Sam shot him a satisfied smirk. "It's you that's shrunk, Dean. You're getting old."

"I'm not old. Only four years older than you, bitch!"

"Jerk."

"Don't make me use this." Cas released Sam and brandished his wooden spoon, threateningly. There was a smile in his eyes, but Dean bet he could do some damage with the utensil if he felt like it. "I think that Sam looks taller because he's more relaxed," said Cas.

Dean rubbed his bristly chin, thoughtfully, and considered his brother's appearance while Sam shuffled under their combined stares.

"He's standing up straighter," continued Cas, gesturing at Sam with the spoon and the fish oven mitt. "Before, he was always slightly stooped. With anxiety."

Sam hid his reddening cheeks behind his hair - which was way longer than Dean's, definitely.

"Whereas Dean…"

Dean felt like he really was shrinking, then, with Cas and Sam both looking at him like he was some kind of weird specimen.

"Dean has not shrunk," said Cas.

Dean stuck his tongue out at his brother and made a face. Cas rolled his eyes. But then he took Dean's hand. "Maybe you look smaller to Sam because you've softened. You let more of your true self show now, Dean."

Sam sniggered. And Cas treated him to his best frowny eyebrows, reminiscent of a smitey Angel of the Lord, wooden spoon or no wooden spoon. He pulled Dean closer so that it looked like the fish oven mitt was eating his arm. "Dean is allowed to show his true self now, without fear of ridicule."

"Uh, yeah, of course. Sorry, Dean," said Sam.

"That's okay, sasquatch." He pulled away from Cas to give his brother another hug, because he could give and receive as many hugs as he wanted now and not just when one or other of them had had a narrow escape from a horrible death or was about to do something suicidal - or at least, he was working toward that level of freedom.

"Are you cooking, Cas?"

"I'm making pasta, Sam." Cas's smile was like the sun coming out as he talked about his latest enthusiasm. "I want to be able to eat like a traditional large Italian family, where they dine al fresco beneath a flowered pergola overlooking their fields of ancient vines."

"Uh…"

"He knows it's winter and there's only three of us, Sammy. But come summer he'll have gotten all his recipes perfect and we'll invite everyone around. And maybe we'll even have some vines planted by then, hey Cas?"

"Yes, Dean. We will have grape vines. Amongst other things. And by then I'll have worked out how to stop my pasta sticking to everything."

"You're making it from scratch?" asked Sam.

Cas pushed the wooden spoon into the fish mitt's mouth and stared at the floor, frowning. "It's a lot more difficult than it looks." He looked up at Sam, but his eyes were still far away. "In Naples, for hundreds of years, groups of women have sat together in the narrow streets, making pasta shapes by the thousand. I used to hover between the upper storeys and watch them and listen to their conversation - which was always very confusing. But they made rolling tiny curls of pasta look so easy."

Sam stuck his hands in his pockets. "It probably just takes practice."

Says the cordon bleu chef who makes cooking a box of macaroni look difficult, Dean thought. But he didn't say it, because it was Christmas Eve. And because Cas had a wooden spoon which he wouldn't hesitate to use on snarky siblings. He picked up Sam's bag.

"I'll take this up. You go on into the kitchen. Hey, Cas - don't tell him which cookies are mine and which are yours."

"I think he'll be able to tell, Dean."

Dean dumped Sam's bag in the guest room - which would have been Cas's room, but he didn't need it now. He checked that the feather duvet was all plumped up and that there was a big stack of soft pillows and that there were plenty of the soft, fluffy towels in the shower room. And then he crossed the landing to the main bathroom, not just to position the row of yellow ducks with precisely equal spacing, but to make sure the sauna and steam room were ready. Because yeah, of course he enjoyed winding his brother up and needling him about all kinds of shit - anything that would earn a bitch-faced glare, really - but Dean also wanted to give Sammy the best Christmas ever, and he knew his brother would really enjoy the mini spa.

In the kitchen, Cas was scraping mushy flour paste off the table, the pasta was churning around in a huge pot of boiling water and Sam, sitting at the table, was holding a cookie in each hand and studying them, a small smile playing on his lips.

He looked over his shoulder as Dean entered.

"Did you really make these?"

"Yeah. Some of 'em."

Sam snorted. "I think I can tell which are yours, Dean."

It happened a lot now. Dean would feel something light and bright inside him and then his face would crinkle up of its own accord and he didn't think he could stop it even if he wanted to. Mostly it was when he looked at Cas, but seeing his brother sitting at the kitchen table in his home, smiling at his and Cas's homemade cookies - well, clearly his face had decided it was an occasion to break out one of those wide, beamy grins and keep it there, and he probably looked real goofy, but Dean didn't actually care.

He sat down and grabbed one of Cas's cookies - clearly and precisely decorated with a sunflower, because Cas had an amazingly steady hand with a piping bag.

Sam held up one of Dean's considerably less expert efforts. "Vampire?"

Dean rolled his eyes. The fangs were easily identifiable, and maybe the red jelly-bean eyes were artistic licence, but Sammy could have put in a bit more effort. "Cookie-pire, Sam - are you ever gonna get with the program about cool names?"

"Apparently not." Sam took a dainty bite. "It's good!"

"Of course it's good." Dean got half of Cas's sunflower in at once and then stuffed the rest in straight after because he knew it would annoy Sam. "Should be, with the amount of butter we put in." Crumbs sprayed. Sam made an ew face. Score.

"Don't eat too many, will you?" Cas put a bowl of salad on the table. "I'm nearly ready to serve the pasta." He turned away to the sink and when he turned back he had a glass containing various long salad leaves and a couple of tall scallions. He put it in the middle of the table, giving Dean a fond smile, which Dean returned, briefly tangling his fingers in Cas's before his angel turned back to the hob where the pasta water was burbling over the top of the pan.

Sam looked gently confused. Dean didn't enlighten him in the hopes that he'd eat at least half the table decoration.

Cas served the pasta, liberally covered in pesto. He had garlic bread too (not homemade) which reconciled Dean to eating some of the salad, even though it wasn't the same in the winter when it had come from a store. Maybe he could make Cas a heated greenhouse?

"What's this shape of pasta called?" Sam asked. "I've never had it."

Dean couldn't give a fuck what the tiny, uneven twists were called. They were great - soft but chewily filling, and covered in green sauce which was made of plants, yeah, but Cas said it had nuts and cheese and oil in, so that must be why it tasted so good.

"They're called trofie," said Cas. "I thought they would be one of the easier shapes to make. But they all came out different." He poked his bowl with his fork. "Some of them twisted up correctly, but some are just… lumps."

Dean immediately covered Cas's free hand with his own and squeezed it. "You did real good, angel. It tastes great."

Then he remembered his brother was sitting at the table. It had been just him and Cas for so long that he had acted on instinct. And now he was holding Cas's hand and calling him angel like a totally soft, wussy, pansy- no. No. He wouldn't let those voices take over. And he wouldn't let go of Cas's hand. He looked at Sam.

And Sammy looked back and smiled. And hey, were his eyes shiny? Ha. Dean could totally wind him up about… no. No. Not about this. Not when there was acceptance and maybe - was that relief as well as tears in his eyes?

Sam sniffed, and then immediately stuck his head down and practically inhaled his meal, which was so not a Sammy thing to do.

Dean may have sniffed a bit too but he was long accustomed to shoving his face so full of food that no one could expect him to speak, let alone say anything about the emo atmosphere.

Cas chewed his sensible-sized spoonful of pasta thoughtfully. He swallowed and looked first at Dean, then at Sam, then back at Dean. "I'm glad we're together like this," said Cas. "Sitting around our table in our home, sharing a meal. Just being ordinary… humans."

Cas and words often resulted in awkwardness, sprinkled liberally with air quotes. But this time he'd summed it up just great.

Dean chewed rapidly and swallowed. "Yeah." And left it at that.

"What is it traditional to do on Christmas Eve for American families?" asked Cas.

"Fuck knows." Dean took another sip from his whiskey glass - his first hard drink in a good while, and he was savouring it rather than knocking it back and then sloshing out another. And staring into the coloured depths of their Christmas tree was adding to his enjoyment. It was like a little world in there, dark bits among the criss-crossing branches, baubles hanging from thread so thin they looked like they were hovering, and the multi-coloured fairylights. Dean liked the green ones best - they were pretty (he could use words like that now - use them straight and not with a sneer) but the green gave them a bit of an edge, a bit of mystery, like just maybe something creepy might be lurking in the eerie light. Not that he wanted to have to take a machete to their tree to rid it of fairies or whatever - it was just an idle thought brought on by a full belly of pasta and a few sips of the good stuff.

"Lots of American families don't celebrate Christmas at all," said Sam. "Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims-"

"Cas knows that, Sammy." Dean took another sip of his drink. He considered the families that he knew. Garth - how did a werewolf family celebrate Christmas? A great big ox heart instead of turkey? Maybe, but Garth probably went as traditional as he could. "People with kids put out milk and cookies for Santa."

"And a carrot for Rudolph," added Sam.

Cas's head tipped to one side, his eyes narrowed. "We could do that."

"We'd only have to drink the milk and eat the cookies ourselves," said Sam.

"What - are you saying Santa won't come, Sammy? Have you been a bad boy? Cause me and Cas - we've been so good!"

Sam smiled and huffed a laugh. "Hey, Dean - we did that once, though, didn't we? Remember?"

"You put out milk and cookies and a carrot?" Cas bounced on his end of the couch, angling himself more toward Dean. "I thought you didn't get to celebrate Christmas when you were children. I'm glad to hear that's not true."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Cas. But we didn't really celebrate. Not as a family," said Sam softly. "Dean always tried his best, though."

"Huh, right. Sapphire Barbie," muttered Dean, ruefully.

They fell into silence. The fire spat. A log shifted. The cactus-guys wriggled and rustled and Sam smiled at them and gave Dean a sidelong raised eyebrow. Although Cas was just as likely to be responsible for them as he was.

"The milk was off," said Dean. "I threw it down the sink when you'd fallen asleep. And we didn't have cookies. So I put out a couple of packets of sugar I'd lifted from a diner."

"I remember. You said Santa took his coffee white with one sugar, and reindeer would be sure to like sugar because horses did."

"Yeah, I was always making up some bullshit."

"It wasn't bullshit, Dean. It was nice. Like I said - you always tried your best. And I appreciated it. Even when I didn't say so."

"Even when you were being a whiny little bitch?"

"Yeah, and even when you were being a total jerk."

Cas didn't threaten them with violence this time. He just shook his head and rearranged himself on the couch, pushing up against Dean until Dean wrapped an arm around his angel and let him rest against his chest and relax, staring into the flames. If Sammy wasn't here, Dean would duck down and drop a kiss in Cas's hair. So he did it anyway.

"We should make our own traditions," murmured Cas, sleepily. "In fact, this is nice. We should always do this."

Dean squeezed him even closer. "We do this anyway, Cas. All the time."

A gust of wind rattled the window panes. It'd be whipping up the snow into drifts. And Baby was out in that. He'd have to check the tarp again before bed.

"I liked the pasta," said Sam. "That could be a tradition. Homemade pasta on Christmas Eve."

"Did you really like it, Sam?" Cas twisted around and Dean rearranged his arm to keep full contact. "I was worried it was too… stodgy."

"It was great. I wouldn't have thought of making it from scratch."

"Yeah, it was just perfect." The pasta was still a pleasant weight in Dean's stomach. And if that meant it was stodgy, then Dean was all for stodginess.

"I've always wanted to go to Italy," said Sam.

"Have you?" Dean looked at his brother, guilt curling in his gut. Which was dumb - how was it his fault if Sam had never got to see the world? "You could go now. You should go."

"Well, I think I might."

"What would you like to see most, Sam?" Cas sat up, but retained a hold on Dean's hand, cradling it between both of his own.

"The ancient ruins," said Sam. He shuffled forward to sit on the edge of his seat, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes bright beneath his floppy bangs. "Did you know that you can see the Ancient Greek remains, from when the Greeks first settled Italy? North of Naples there's a promontory where there are temples, and beneath the headland there's an underground area that they call the Sibyl's cave even though it was actually partly a defensive excavation and partly cisterns to collect rainwater. And a little way around the bay there's Baia, which was the ancient Roman seaside resort. And that's not even getting to Pompeii and Herculaneum. And then there's Rome of course and - not many people know this - you can go to the ancient port of Ostia which was preserved in mud from the river so that it's as good as Pompeii, maybe better."

"Wow - been doing your research, Sammy?" It was good to see his brother so lit up about something that was just for him and not some crazy-ass plan or spell that might, if it didn't blow up in their faces - fix one or other of them, or even the whole world.

"You should definitely go, Sam," said Cas. "I could tell you what those places were like, when there were people living there."

"Wow, that'd be great, Cas. Hey, were you there, when Vesuvius erupted?"

Cas's grip on Dean's hand tightened as he tensed suddenly. "I… I don't remember."

His voice faltered and his eyes held that lost look that made Dean want to go full rocket-launcher on whoever caused it. "What's up, Cas?"

"I… don't know. It's one of those periods where things get… hazy. I can't connect my memories."

Dean's heart sped up and he tried to make himself breathe slowly. It wouldn't do Cas any good to get riled up. "Let me guess - you wanted to stop thousands of people being swallowed up by lava so you got dragged back to heaven and brainwashed."

Cas sighed and rubbed his forehead. "It seems likely."

Dean pulled his hand out of Cas's grasp and wrapped both arms around him, holding him tight against the memory, or gaps in his memory. "Well, that's over," he said, pressing his face into Cas's hair. "That's all over and we're not gonna let it ruin our Christmas Eve. Are we, angel?"

Cas's head shook. "No, Dean."

Sam began to talk again about all the old stuff he wanted to see. And Cas sat up, seeming to have put his sadness to one side, and listened attentively, and told Sam about things that he remembered - places he had been, people he had watched going about their everyday lives for hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of years. And yeah, he had gaps where the heavenly fuck-ups had done things to him. But he'd kept a lot more than they'd taken away.

Dean just listened. He watched the flames and he watched the fairylights and he watched the cactus-guys flicking their branches and shimmying from side to side when Sam got especially enthusiastic or, better still, when Cas let out a rare, uninhibited laugh.

And he thought that eating a whole lot of pasta and then sitting in front of the fire and talking about any old thing were enough. In fact, as Christmas Eve traditions went, they were perfect.

There was another tradition that he wanted to start, though. Or not even a Christmas Eve thing really, but something he wanted all the time. With Cas.

But it would just be nice if they could start tonight. Like a Christmas present for both of them. The best Christmas present. If Dean could get his head in the right place.

He tried not to bite his nails.

Hmm... what's Dean getting all tied up about? Chapter 17 will reveal all... Thank you very much to everyone who's reading and enjoying!