Chapter Text
“Happy Holidays… Happy Holidays…”
Dean clenched his jaw tight as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He should just stay quiet, let Cas enjoy his newfound love for the classic Christmas songs Sam has been playing relentlessly, and yet -
“While the merry bells keep ringing, may your-”
“And what exactly is so ‘happy’ and ‘merry’ about Mom and Jack being gone?”
Despite not turning around to look at him, Dean heard Cas’ jaw snap shut and could picture his expression perfectly. His eyes would’ve widened at first, then narrowed: Dean could feel the weight of them on his back.
“I can see Sam’s eggnog has done nothing for your mood,” Castiel replied coolly and Dean did turn around for that.
“Excuse me?”
Dean’s brow raised as he watched Cas widen his stance, preparing himself for a fight. It made something inside Dean twist in a fit of guilt and anguish, hating that Cas was standing in the bunker kitchen, their home, preparing himself for battle. It was quickly drowned out with his stomach full of whiskey-soaked-nog and anger.
“I think Sam had hoped making you that treat would get you in a… ‘holiday mood’.” Castiel lifted his fingers for the air quotes, but Dean was focused on the smirk on his lips. It wasn’t amusement, it was angry. “I told him-” Castiel suddenly shook his head, turning away to open the fridge.
“You told him what?” Dean demanded, fingers itching at his sides.
Castiel re-emerged with a fresh bowl of dip and turned back around to meet Dean’s gaze. “It doesn’t matter,” he answered with a heavy sigh. “I have no intention of fighting with you tonight, Dean. This is my Christmas, too.”
“Oh, so you’re actually planning on sticking around?” Dean asked, turning his body to follow Cas as he walked back towards the stairs into the library. He swiped the bottle of Jack Daniels off the table, pouring a healthy amount into his glass.
“Sam asked me to,” Castiel answered, straightening his shoulders. “He said it wouldn’t be right if I wasn’t here.”
“Since when do you give a shit?”
Dean watched Castiel’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the dip bowl harder. His eyes narrowed again, giving Dean a look that would’ve terrified a weaker man. But he wasn’t afraid of Cas, not anymore. Not of anything the angel could inflict on him physically.
“I have always ‘given a shit’. How dare you think-”
“Have you?” Dean interrupted, taking a large sip from his glass. “Did you give a shit when you kept Jack’s behavior from us? When you killed Belphegor? When you-”
“I am not having this conversation with you tonight, Dean.”
Dean glared at him, twisting the glass in his hands. Sam seemed completely gung-ho, ready to forgive Cas for his role in Mary’s death, in Rowena’s, but Dean wasn’t. Cas wasn’t going to be able to just walk away from this conversation forever.
“You know,” Cas started and Dean looked up, half wondering if Cas had changed his mind. Dean placed the glass down on the table; he was just clear enough to have this conversation now, if that’s what Cas was aiming for.
“I have always given a shit, Dean. I turned my back on my brothers and sisters, forsaken my heaven and God for you and your brother. And I have never, for a single moment, regretted that. I have been first in line as your personal punching bag, the one you easily lay blame to, despite me making mistakes and decisions similar to those you and Sam yourselves have made. I have watched you fail and fall and picked you up, lent you support, believed in you… and never been given the same courtesy. Instead, I’ve been insulted and ostracized, second guessed and handled with ‘kid gloves’. I refuse to play that game any longer.
“Sam is my family, too. He’s the only family that I have. And yes, I intend on spending my Christmas with him and Eileen, and I intend on enjoying myself for a single moment in which I am treated, in return, as family.”
Dean swallowed hard, his throat thick. “Yeah?” Dean snorted and picked up the glass again, needing something to do with his hands, something in his mouth before he said something stupid. “And what does that make me?”
Castiel stared at him for a moment, his mouth parting before snapping shut again. Dean tried to ignore the beating of his heart.
“I honestly don’t know.”
Dean slammed back the rest of his drink as Castiel left him alone at the table.
---
“Dean, Eileen finished stringing up the popcorn and cranberries, want to help her hang it?”
Dean glanced up, raised his glass, and shook his head. “You’re taller than I am, Sam.
---
“Dean, we’re almost out of dip. Come get it while it’s hot!”
“Thanks, Eileen, I’m good with this.”
Eileen narrowed her eyes at the half empty bottle but sighed and left with her bag of chips.
---
“Dean-”
“No.”
---
“Dean… is this what you’re going to do all night?”
Dean snorted, pouring another shot of Jack and looking up at his brother in the doorway. “Yup,” he answered, popping the ‘p’ before downing the liquid. It didn’t even burn anymore. He checked the bottle and clicked his tongue; he needed to get another.
Sam sighed and Dean jumped as the chair beside him was pulled out, the legs scraping against the tile.
He waited a beat, Sam’s gaze heavy. He counted backwards from three and then Sam broke the silence. “Cas is leav-”
“I knew it!” Dean yelled, jerking his arm out and sloshing half his drink on Sam’s reindeer pants. Eileen had insisted they all get holiday pajamas — Dean’s were laying over the back of his chair. “Sorry Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes, standing up to get a wad of paper towels to mop up his crotch. From the glower thrown his way, Dean knew he wasn’t successful. He snorted again and leaned back in the chair. “I knew he wasn’t going to stick around,” Dean muttered, watching as Sam paused in his movements, glancing up at him.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Just, nothing.” Dean shook his head and kicked Sam’s chair back with his foot. “I just knew Cas wasn’t going to stick around. He never-”
“Dean?” Sam asked, coming up behind him and placing his hand on the back of Dean’s chair. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean nodded his head, swallowing hard, “room’s spinning a bit.”
Sam sighed and reached over Dean’s shoulder, taking the bottle and glass from him, depositing both in the sink. “Well, I was going to ask if you needed me to tell him to pick anything up, but, I think you should switch to some water or something.”
Dean rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the sudden wave of dizziness washing over him. Sam said something behind him, but Dean’s ears were ringing too loudly to hear anything else.
---
Dean groaned, pushing his head up from the table and blinking the sleep from his eyes. His head was already pounding and he reached out, searching for the bottle before he remembered Sam had taken it from him.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, sitting up straight and ignoring the heaviness in his head. If there was no alcohol readily available, there was no point in being awake. What the hell had woken him anyways?
The dull yellow light was on over the stove, but it barely cast its glow over at the table he was sitting at. A shiver went up Dean’s spine, making him twist around in the chair, eyes narrowed as he peered around the kitchen.
The sound of metal scraping against the floor made him jump and he shoved back from the table, knocking over the chair he’d been sitting in with a loud crash. His socks slid across the tile as he reached for the container of salt and stopped short as the apparition suddenly blinked into existence before him.
He exhaled sharply, his breath hanging heavy and frozen in the air. He blinked hard, reaching for the side of the island counter to steady himself.
“Dad?”
John Winchester flickered once, twice, then stood before him. He was pale, thick double-linked chains winding around his chest and hips, dragging against the tile like a tail. They shimmered gold, flashing as they touched his skin with a soft sizzle of heat and smoke. Dean opened his mouth to ask how on Earth a ghost could be draped in iron chains and still appear corporeal, but realized there was a more pressing question.
“Why… We burned your body.”
John nodded his head slowly, the movement making the chains slide against the side of his throat. Dean winced as he watched them spark. John stopped nodding and just stared, silence spreading between them. Behind his father, the overhead light of the stove flickered once.
“I don’t… understand,” Dean said after a moment. “Why are you here?”
“You are making grave mistakes, son,” John answered, his voice echoing through Dean’s head, though he didn’t speak louder than a whisper. “Mistakes I learned far too late.”
“This isn’t real,” Dean replied, taking a step back. His hand moved blindly behind him, but John caught the movement and blitzed out of existence. Dean gasped as his back hit something cool and solid, the chains on his father’s body hissing like snakes as they lifted to wind around his outstretched arm.
“This will be you, Dean,” John whispered and Dean jerked back violently, tripping over the pajama pants that had fallen when the chair had been knocked over, and finding himself sprawled over the kitchen floor.
“Each chain is heavy, a debt I will never repay. I lived out most of my life in search of revenge, forsaking the life I was given, forsaking you and your brother. And where did it get me, Dean? Where?”
John took a step forward, the chains hissing and scraping on the tile. Dean stared up at him in horror, watching as his father’s skin seemed to melt away, burned and flayed off from his years in hell, his body twisting and morphing until it was unrecognizable. Except for his eyes.
Dean would know his father’s eyes anywhere.
They stayed locked on Dean’s own, full of so much emotion it made Dean’s own stomach twist. John’s voice was still in his head, “I missed out on the best parts of life, these chains are my burden to bear, don’t make them yours.”
The sound of hissing made Dean gasp and he looked down to see the chains winding around his pant leg, seconds before he felt the sting of their burn. They moved up his body, twisting and igniting as John’s voice got louder in his head.
Someone was screaming, and Dean realized it was him, his fingers feeling like they were electrocuted as he tried to pry the chains from his body.
“You will have three chances, three lessons I could never teach, to get yourself on a different path.”
He gasped as John’s voice was suddenly gone, the silence snapping around him like a rubber band, pressing in on him even harder than the chains had been. Everything in the kitchen was still, silent. The light over the stove flickered in its yellow haze once, twice, and then Dean closed his eyes and succumbed to darkness.