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Their first Christmas together sucked.
The second wasn’t much better.
The third… Well, Cas wasn’t there for the third, so it didn’t count.
The fourth wasn’t bad if you didn’t count the fact Dean had pneumonia and they spent most of it amid a flood of tissues, antibiotics, and Mucinex.
The fifth. Cas was sick. A whopper of a sinus and upper respiratory infection that Dean only managed to avoid because of allergy medication, vitamin C, and Vicks Vapo-Rub.
Six. Dean was going to make the sixth Christmas the best.
“Okay.” He had cleared the table of everything, positioned his notebook and pen perfectly. He had a cup of coffee and his phone in reach. He was ready to start planning. “Okay.”
He sat there for thirty minutes. Drew a shitty reindeer shitting on Sam’s van.
“Goddamn it.” He flipped the page and cleared his throat, wrote in large block letters at the top of the page: CHRISTMAS PLANS 2017…
January 7, he and Cas slouched back into their apartment, bruised, contused, and annoyed.
“How the Hell was I supposed to know it was an actual Trickster and not your brother again!” He kicked off his boots and pulled his jacket gingerly from his shoulders, draping it over the back of a kitchen chair. His notebook was still there, those letters mocking him.
Cas spoke gently around the bloody gauze in his mouth. “For one, Gabriel has promised only to manipulate those who deserve it. Ritter did not deserve to be ‘Scrooged.’”
Dean grunted and pulled the notebook page free, crumpling it between his hands.
0-0-0
Lucky number seven! Christmas 2018. Okay, I can do this.
December 15, Jo knocked on their door at three in the morning, “Hey, can Becky and me crash on your couch?”
“Me and Becky,” Dean sniped, rubbing his eyes, and pulling his t-shirt down over the front of his underwear.
“Whatever.”
Becky had horribly long phone conversations with some guy she was apparently dating. Jo tracked mud on the carpet and left empty pizza boxes under the couch.
They didn't leave until the third.
Dean was bitter. Cas thought his sour expressions and rapid, impatient foot-tapping were hilarious.
0-0-0
“It’s not right.” Dean had the phone held to his ear and was heating a small pot of soup on their hotplate. “Every year— every year! Something goes wrong. The only time we had a semi-normal holiday was when I was bedridden with the creeping-crud.”
“Maybe you should go away for the holidays?” Charlie said. She was eating too, something much better tasting than off-brand chicken noodle. “Like, don’t tell anyone where you’re going, just pack up the pup and make for the mountains!”
“And then we’d run into something— the abominable snowman, or something.” He turned the hotplate off with a rough twist of the knob. “We’re cursed.”
“You’re not cursed. Sam would tell you if you were cursed.”
“Then how do you explain it? We’ve been together eight years now. Eight. Years. And we haven’t had a single Christmas go to plan! Not one!”
“No, but you’ve had them together, all except that one.”
Dean pulled the saucepan off the burner and emptied the contents into a bowl. “I’m just tired of shit always getting in our way! Is it so wrong that I— that I want the Hallmark Channel bullshit?”
She sighed, “No. But, is the Hallmark Channel realistic?”
“No,” he muttered.
“You still want it though.”
“Yeah.”
“I feel that… Okay, what is the bullet point version of your plan?”
He peered out the window at the snow and growing darkness, recognized Cas coming across the street by the hunch of his shoulders and the fact he always wore his backpack correctly, over both shoulders like a complete nerd. “Lights, tinsel, no vet ER visits when Sputnik tries to chew it up— a tree that will actually fit in the room—”
“So a teacup-tree?”
“Can it.”
“Sorry,” she giggled.
“—the perfect gift, if that’s even frickin possible. Food that doesn’t come from the diner. And alone time.”
“Alone time, or ‘alone time’ ?”
“I’d be happy with two hours without having to worry that someone’s going to knock on the door or ask for money.”
“Gotcha.”
“I just… Why is it so difficult!”
“Maybe,” she started gently, “It’s because you are willing to give up normal for other people. You hunt monsters, Dean. You’re awesome… And sometimes that means you don’t get a very Merry Christmas.”
She was right. He knew she was right. And it sucked.
Cas came upstairs shaking snow from his hair. He had grown a weird scruffy beard, because it’s cold as fuck in Nebraska, and Dean was tired of his stupid frostbitten cheeks and having to hear him whine about them. Angel of the Lord Cas may be, but with this human life he had, he was not above whining about his discomforts, and things he thought were stupid.
Hell, half the other college students he had made friends with liked him because he didn’t really go for the whole ‘societal norm.’ He’d been written up twice in one of his history classes for ‘positing opinion as fact.’ His peers thought he was funny. Dean got to listen to the rants when Cas got home about how “he knew he was right, he’d fucking seen it happen.”
Today looked like it was going to be one of those days. Dean told Charlie goodbye and discretely tossed his ‘Christmas Plan 2019’ post-it into the trash. They ended up leaving Christmas Eve to help Jody with a training case for the girls that had got a little out of hand. Dean decided that next year, he wasn't even going to try.
0-0-0
2020 started pretty much like any other year. January was wet, cold, and gross. The Impala skidded off the road and Dean only narrowly avoided the guardrail. They made a weekend trip to the bunker to park her and pick up Cas’ truck. Dean knew he should have done it ages ago. Snow and a rear-wheel-drive do not mix. Sam offered to let him borrow the van, but Dean made some excuse about it ruining the image he’d cultivated with the college brats on campus.
The bunker was still decorated, big tree in the foyer, tinsel and lights, Pax and the kid’s toys scattered around. It made Dean a little jealous so he complained about the ‘art projects’ on the war map and the drawings on the kitchen fridge.
Sam rolled his eyes and threatened to throw glitter at him.
February was business as usual. Chamuel stopped by for ‘brunch’ on Valentine’s Day, left a smattering of that lovey-dovey grace of his all over.
March was when things started to get interesting. April when the world really started going to ‘shit’ in a mundane, totally not-unnatural way.
“Lockdown? What do they think this is, Croatoan?” Dean was in the bathtub, feet propped in the corner, crossed at the ankles. He had his hair molded into a mohawk with shampoo suds. He normally hated taking baths, but the shower head had snapped off during a bit of bathroom shower acrobatics around Valentine’s Day, and the landlord had yet to call a plumber.
“It’s a fast-moving viral infection that causes massive damage to one’s circulatory system and lungs.”
“Yeah, but we’re okay, right? It’ll blow over?”
Cas was standing in the bathroom door, with his arms crossed. “That wasn't part of the deal. I’m not omnipotent right now. I’m living a human life, our story is not written.”
“So… so this is serious? Like, it’s not something you can mojo away?”
“No, Dean, I cannot ‘mojo away’ COVID-19. That’s not the agreement we made. Little things, yes, my grace can be used for hunting, but I can’t protect us from a virus any more than you can.”
Dean stared at him. His soapy mohawk began to droop. “Well shit. What about your graduation?”
“Unless we’re otherwise notified, the hooding ceremony goes on as planned.”
Twenty-twenty didn't go as planned.
Cas graduated. As expected. His professors were more than glad to see him go.
He and Dean moved into the bunker, because paying twelve-hundred in rent on a shitty little room in a Victorian with no insulation was bullshit. Even if getting money was fairly easy it still sucked. Despite the fact using grace to mess with the coding on debit cards wasn't exactly in compliance with the ‘agreement.’
Dean picked one of the unused rooms. He went a little crazy cleaning it up. It was their room. He could decorate it any way he wanted because Cas didn't really give a shit about interior decorating, even if he'd learned all the terminology and could do it if he wanted to.
Dean liked picking out the bed linen. He spent a week and a half reading reviews of different mattresses online before he chose which one he wanted, and got so excited he was practically vibrating when he had picked up the box from the store.
King size, fourteen inches of memory foam with cooling gel, antimicrobial, hypoallergenic cover, and firm core that offered maximum support for achy backs, joints, and muscles.
He opened it first thing the next morning and let it ‘expand’ for fourteen full hours with an aromatherapy candle he’d stolen from Sam burning in the room. He said it was because some of the reviews had mentioned it retained a chemical-like scent. “If the air going into it smells good, then it will smell good.”
He spent 45 minutes making the bed, putting on freshly laundered sheets and blankets and showcasing the special pillow he’d gotten for free that had been designated Sputnik’s new bed. He made Castiel lie down first and watched the other man melt into it with a look of pure glee on his face.
They spent the first half of the night messing up the sheets.
0-0-0
July was weird. Usually, during the summer months, there would be calls every week. Some monster or cryptid animal to deal with, but 2020 was a year like no other. Slowly, between June and September, monster calls just stopped coming in. As the COVID numbers on TV grew Sam started insisting that they interact as little as possible with people outside their ‘Core Group.’ Things got weirder and weirder after that.
There were still calls of cryptid animals every so often, but Sam and Charlie had built a massive phone tree and had begun contacting hunters and even some amateurs local to the incident to handle them. If they weren’t too dangerous, Becky’s list of ‘fandom friends’ came in useful for once.
Sam himself however, started getting cagey. He had started obsessively washing his hands and using hand sanitizer. He sprayed things with Lysol, and refused to come within six feet of pretty much anyone besides Pax and Eileen. He started washing all their laundry, even things they hadn’t worn outside, while wearing a mask and gloves.
Dean would never admit it, but he’d been using more hand sanitizer than was probably healthy as well.
“It’s because he can’t go out running in the morning.” Cas said evenly while they were lying in bed together around mid-August. “He wants to go do things and knows logically he cannot without risking exposure.”
“And he knows we’re on the ‘do not resuscitate’ list with the reapers.” Dean scratched his neck.
“So he’s trying to find some modicum of control, and this is his attempt at self-soothing.”
“Ew—“
Cas elbowed him. “Don’t be crass.”
“So Sammy the Social Butterfly is having a mid-life-crisis because of this lockdown stuff.”
“And you’re not? I’ve seen your Netflix history.”
Dean stayed silent.
September was uneventful. October saw Dean buying too much overpriced Halloween candy because he couldn’t cheat kids out of it playing five-card stud. November was a mindless drudge, interspersed with Sam’s fraying nerves and Dean’s increasingly ornate cooking in preparation for Thanksgiving.
“Coping mechanisms,” Cas muttered to himself over crème brûlée. "Humans have strange and unpredictable coping mechanisms. Sam worries, Dean stress bakes.”
“And you stress eat!” Dean shouted from the kitchen.
The only ones who seemed to be taking this ‘lockdown’ stuff in stride were Butthead and Sputnik, who quite enjoyed all the excuses to go outside and walk around the little gravel lot in front of the bunker.
0-0-0
It all came to a head on December 3. Sam had prepared himself to go on a grocery run. He had his 'hazmat suit' which consisted of a white bleachable sweatsuit, beanie, and mask. He was ready to literally strip to his underwear and jog to the laundry room without encountering anyone on his return.
It was cold, wet, gross — Sam tripped, slipped, fought to remain upright by pinwheeling his arms, and fell in the mud.
But, did he creep back inside and change? Check himself for injury? No. He went shopping. With slush and mud all up his back and in his hair. Nobody had any issue social distancing from Sam Winchester that day.
He came back soundlessly, deposited his bags in a crate by the stairs, and slopped his way into the war room where Dean was watching ‘Great British Baking Show’ on his phone and taking notes.
Their eyes met.
Dean slowly paused the video and put down his phone. “Dude.”
“Yeah.” Sam went straight to the bathroom and plopped himself down under the shower fully clothed.
Dean followed him a few moments later and stood in the door. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Would ‘Scream Therapy’ help? Primal Screaming?”
“Did enough of that in the car.”
“Wanna shoot things? The kid found some new targets. Nineteen forties era ghouls. Long-distance head shots.”
“That… that sounds great actually.”
Sometimes it was awesome having your own firing range.
0-0-0
Dean tried not to think about it. Tried like hell not to get his hopes up, or make yet another list of things he was never going to get to do, because Charlie had hit the nail on the head last year. They couldn’t help but help people.
Yet, the closer and closer Christmas got, the more Dean’s heart ached and dreamed and longed for that stupid Hallmark Christmas.
“It’s pointless! You do this every year!” He was scowling at himself in the mirror, shaving foam still on his chin. “You make this list and have all these ideas, then something happens and they go out the window.” He rinsed his shaver and tried not to nick himself as he muttered.
But he had kept wondering. Scribbling tiny notes on little scraps of paper. Christmas Plan 2020.
Then he’d woken up one morning to find Sam’s car gone, and no sign of the kid. He puttered around in the kitchen for a while, made more bacon than he probably should eat alone, and wound up doom scrolling Netflix with Cas.
Somewhere in the ‘S’ tab, Dean heard a ten-year-old shout from the main room.
“DEEEEN! COME LOOK AT MY TREE!”
He didn’t run — more like he trudged. It would be that giant fake Douglas Fir Sam had found who knows where, set up by magic or something. Cas walked with him, rubbing the pillow wrinkles from the side of his face.
There was a tree.
An actual tree sitting in the foyer.
It was short, only about five feet at most, fat, and sprinkled with melting snow.
Sam was pouring a bag of ice around the root ball someone had had the forethought to put in an oversized plastic tub. The very tub Dean often used to give Sputnik baths outdoors in the summer.
“It’s our first real tree! We’ve never had one in our whole lives!”
Pax was bouncing on his feet, grin broad and toothy, and behind him Jack was staring at it with wide, mystified eyes. “There was a bird in it!”
Sam looked frazzled, glanced up at his brother with cheeks reddened by cold and exertion. “It’s live so they can plant it when we’re done… They were very adamant on that front.”
“There aren’t any bugs in it, are there?” Dean wrinkled his nose. His only experience with a live tree was the pine branches he and Sam would snap off white pines that grew alongside the interstate and stick in a soup can full of dirt. Or that year he’d bought a tea-cup tree for Cas and it had ended up dying because they’d had to go out of town on a hunt.
Dean ground his teeth, didn’t let himself join in on the hope and eagerness in the boys’ eyes.
“Let’s go get the decorations!” Pax shouted and grabbed Jack by the wrist, dragging the taller boy behind him.
“They suckered you into buying a live tree?”
Sam hesitated and looked up at Dean guiltily. “Buying is a relative term—”
“HA! You stole a Christmas tree!”
“I left some money… in the mailbox.”
Dean covered his face and tried not to laugh too loudly.
Cas patted Sam on the shoulder and bent to help arrange the ice.
Dean tried not to get involved, but Jack gave him such a deep searching look, longing for approval, that he couldn’t walk away. So… So, he helped string up the lights, and wrapped Castiel in tinsel and said they had their very own tree topper.
Castiel scowled at him, but Dean could tell that inside he enjoyed it. They joined in the excited chatter of Pax and Jack pawing through a box of dollar store plastic ornaments, and the special ones Pax had made over the years. Dean liked watching them choose so carefully where each one would go.
Yet, it seemed so strange to him. They did this every year, or so Dean had assumed, but the kids acted as if it was all new and exciting for them. From Sam’s expression, it was normal though, so Dean didn’t say anything.
A few bulbs needed replacing, and two or three plastic baubles had been broken, but Dean watched the tree come together, watched Cas’s irritated face soften into a too-wide grin.
Sam and Pax pulled out paper and cut strips. Dean watched from the corner of his eye while he untangled long strings of lights for Castiel and Jack to wind down the banister.
Sam and Pax took turns using colorful crayons to draw intricate sigils on the slips of paper and wave their hands over them, putting power to the marks. It was witchy stuff Dean didn’t really understand, but the seals blazed brightly in Sam’s red and Paxton’s green. Then they taped the slips of paper together into long shimmering chains. The aura of them was entirely protective, caring, so Dean didn’t protest the magic use, even wandered over once they were hung up and studied their shapes.
Dean didn’t think much of it until he was shuffling to bed later that night and found Cas making a chain of his own. Each sigil was unlike any Dean had seen before, combining Enochian and different dead languages to make beautiful little patterns down the length of each chain. They glittered like rainbows with his grace.
“What are you doing?” Dean leaned over his shoulder at the desk and gently prodded one of the symbols.
“Pax explained the chains he and Sam made were hopes for the new year. Protection, and concealment from harmful entities. I thought it was an interesting idea.”
“These don’t look like Sam’s though.”
“No, it’s a different school of magic… Sam’s are primarily Solomon’s Seals, and a few he and Pax use for harnessing their intent.”
“And yours are angelic.”
“Not entirely… They’re mine. Partly angelic, partly human. They represent our duality.”
Dean grunted. This he understood, and he pulled over the extra chair he kept beside the bed for nights Cas couldn’t sleep and stole a slip of unused paper. He knew how to put his intent into things; it was the same process he used to tap into his own grace. He paused a moment, thinking, then set his pen to paper. ‘Safety, Health—' he hesitated, heart aching, and pushed the word through his being: ‘—Happiness.’ He stared at the words, watched color and light bleed into them, not as bright as Castiel’s, but still powerful in their own right.
English was so much simpler than sigil making. Dean could fumble his way through something magical, but didn’t really like to mess with witch's alphabets and schools like Sam did. It felt weird inside like he was forcing it, where it came so naturally to his brother. “Will this work?” He held the slip up for Castiel’s inspection.
“Yes, that’ll do.”
It wasn’t a long chain, just long enough to drape across the lintel. But it shimmered when they turned the lights off and crawled under the blankets together.
Two days later Dean made cookies with Pax and Jack. He colored little bits of dough for them to make eyes and noses and mouths for sugar cookie snowmen. He enjoyed it even more when Sam and Cas joined in, bringing juvenile and petty squabbles over food coloring and sticky fingers. The cookies came out lumpy and lopsided but tasted better than any store-bought crap Dean had picked up before.
He taught Jack and Paxton to make gingerbread and supervised while they tried and failed to make a gingerbread house. He then spent two days scouring the internet for what could have caused the gingerbread to crack and crumble. He woke Cas up at two in the morning with wide, haunted eyes. “Did you know there’s more than one type of gingerbread?”
“You’re insane.” Castiel rolled over and pulled the blankets over his head, wrapped his wings tightly around himself, and went back to sleep.
The second gingerbread house was a success, even if it did taste like garbage. “Eh, the raccoons will eat it.”
It wasn’t until the twentieth, drowsy and satiated with Cas's heat pressed against his side that Dean realized what was happening.
Lights, tinsel, no vet ER visits. A tree that will actually fit in the room, the perfect gift. Food that doesn’t come from the diner. And alone time.
“Holy shit,” he whispered to the paper chain of hopes above the door. “I didn’t get him a present.”
Dean offered to kid-sit the next day while Sam took Cas out grocery shopping.
“Hey… I need to get Cas the perfect present. What does he want?” he whispered to Pax while he prepared lunch.
Pax looked up warily from mixing chocolate milk. “I’m psychic, not a mind reader.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Mind reading is rude if they don’t know you’re doing it. Castiel doesn’t like to have his mind read.”
“I can do it!” Jack said eagerly, forks in one hand, plates in the other. “He wouldn’t even realize.”
“No, you shouldn’t. It’s not right.”
“But it’s Christmas. It’s okay to keep secrets at Christmas, and he would be forgiving when he got what he really wanted.”
“It’s okay to keep secrets, but not that kind of secrets. That’s still mind reading and it’s rude,” Pax said, face twisted into a miniature Bitch Face. He looked up at Dean apologetically. “Why don’t you just ask him?”
“Asking him is easier. Then there’s no mind reading involved.” Jack put the plates down on the table and rubbed a spot on his fork with his thumb.
“I don’t want to ask him.”
“Get him a puzzle. He likes puzzles.”
“What, like a jigsaw puzzle?”
“No, like puzzle boxes, and stuff.”
Dean leaned over and whispered into Pax’s ear. “Is this you trying to be discreet around Jack?”
“I’m not reading Cas’ mind!” He picked up the glasses of milk and went toward the table.
Dean thought he looked just like Sam from the back. Scrawny little ten-year-old with wild hair. He turned back to the pancakes. “Who wants bacon!”
After lunch, Dean looked up puzzle boxes, grit his teeth, and cursed because there was no way they would arrive on time. He scoured the archive and the file room, but the only boxes he found were cursed, contained something unspeakable, or were filled with old, rotting cigars. As pretty as the cursed box was, he really didn’t want to chance it. The other box… yeah, no. It was tied shut with a tag that said ‘do not open under any circumstances.’
“Dammit.” He emptied the cigar box, the tissue-wrapped rolls practically disintegrating in his hands, and dusted it out. It still smelled of expensive tobacco, which wasn't a bad smell. It was plain, dark wood, with little brass corner brackets and hinges. Years ago it had probably had some kind of paper advertisement pasted on the top, and a wax seal or something, but time had worn it away to only a few lightly discolored spots where the paste had been.
He thought of the box he kept his fake IDs in, head tilting to the side thoughtfully.
“Okay.”
0-0-0
It snowed on the twenty-third. Not a lot, thankfully, but enough that Pax and Jack spent a long time up in the observatory peering out the frosty windows with excited looks on their faces.
“What are they doing, waiting for Santa?” Dean peered up at them with his nose wrinkled.
“Sam said we could go sledding off the hill tomorrow!” Jack said without turning around.
“Sam said what?” Dean turned slowly and appraised his brother. “The hill? The big hill that ends in the river? The only hill around?”
Sam hid his face in his book.
“I’m old enough to know to roll off!” Pax said indignantly over his shoulder. “Jack isn’t, but that’s what big brothers are for!”
Dean snatched Sam’s book out of his hand; “If either one of them winds up in the river I’m holding you responsible.”
“Who exactly is the dad here?” Sam said evenly, reaching for the tome. “I’m not going to let them fall in the river.
They didn’t end up in the river, but Dean had a feeling it had less to do with Sam, relishing in being outside, and more to do with Pax letting Jack know when to stop the sled with his bigger legs and feet. It was a near miss a few times, but you couldn’t blame Pax for being a daredevil. He was a Winchester after all.
The five of them came inside once the sun was going down and wiped down Butthead and Sputnik’s bellies and feet. They changed into pajamas and thick socks because the bunker’s concrete and tile floor was cold in the winter, no matter how powerful the boiler was. Castiel preferred sweatpants and a loose t-shirt with a festive print, and Dean liked his slippers and old man robe. Sam had found, at the boys’ request, pajamas with abominable snowmen dabbing on the front for Pax and Jack, while he’d settled on sweats and a hoodie for himself.
“OH!” Pax rushed from the room and came back with a paper bag. “Me and Jack got these for you!” He plunged his arm into the bag and forced a pair of plaid antlers on a headband onto Sam’s head.
Sam was not amused, but bore it without comment.
“It’s festive!” Pax proclaimed, jabbing a finger in the air. He shoved an elf hat haphazardly onto Castiel’s head and a crown made of blinking lights onto Dean’s. “Now everybody’s decorated!”
Afterward, he insisted on making cocoa for everyone, the Swiss Miss kind with the tiny marshmallows like Grandma Ellen made him. “It’s not like Aunt Jody’s, but it’s gots marshmallows!”
Dean and Sam read and reread the instructions on how to cook a turkey and finally called Ellen for advice when Dean discovered something he called a ‘turkey wiener’ stuffed up inside it.
"The Cornish hens I did for Thanksgiving didn't have weiners!"
“It’s just the neck and giblets. Freeze ‘em if you don’t want to eat ‘em. Bobby likes them in casserole!” Ellen said with a smile.
Pax shrieked when they were removed and Jack made a contemplative face and held out a plastic freezer bag when Sam called for one.
Cooking a turkey was a lot more work than it had seemed. Seasoning, stuffing the cavity with chopped onion, and sliced apples with sage. All the different spices and butter rubbed on this and that, foil wrapped around wings.
Dean was considering changing clothes again when they were finished. “I’ve got turkey water on my robe!” He washed his hands twice and displayed the discolored drips on his sleeves and front. “I’m gonna get salmonella!” He stripped it off and carried it to the washroom.
It was a surprisingly quiet evening. A Christmas Story played on Sam’s laptop, and the boys sprawled themselves on their backs under the tree, staring up through the branches at the lights and glittering tinsel. Eventually Dean and Sam joined them, while Castiel watched from the library.
It was weird, Dean thought. He and Sam had never done this as kids. Never had the opportunity to experience the ordinary American Christmas. Lying on the floor staring up at the glowing wonder above them Dean realized why Pax and Jack had been so excited to decorate the tree, felt the same excitement himself. This was a holiday many families celebrated in the same way, and this year the Winchesters got to be ordinary too. For this, they appreciated it all the more.
Butthead wormed his way between Pax and Jack and flopped down tiredly. Dean could hear Castiel putting on some music in the other room, something soft and instrumental, as a few of the main lights clicked out.
The room around them became still and dark save the glitter of fairy lights. The quiet only disturbed as Castiel joined them, squeezing in too close to Dean’s left side. One hand bumped another and their fingers entwined.
Hush fell over the bunker. The only sound was music and the whisper of steam in the boiler pipes.
0-0-0
Dean woke gently the next morning, which was a feat unto itself. He was warm and comfortable in his bed with Cas curled against his back.
“Merry Christmas.”
Dean grinned, couldn’t help it, and patted the hand resting against his stomach. “Morning Sunshine.”
“It’s a little past nine, Paxton and Jack have made coffee and are trying to make breakfast to wake everyone up. However, it smells like they found your cookie recipe instead.”
“As long as they’re not making pralines, we’ll survive.”
“Peanut butter chocolate chip.”
“Mmm,” he cooed, rolling carefully onto his back with a stretch. “Breakfast of champions.”
Sam was just shuffling out of the bathroom, hair mussed and eyes squinted in irritation at the earliness of the hour. He may long for social interaction and ‘normality’ but he’d also gotten used to sleeping in since his morning runs were put on hold.
Pax and Jack were sprinkled liberally with flour and had chocolate and peanut butter in the corners of their mouths. They sat innocently on the kitchen table with a heaping plate of cookies between them and half-eaten bowls of too sweet oatmeal on their laps.
“Pax said we had to have breakfast first.” Jack grinned proudly.
Sam muttered that at least it wasn’t ‘cookie crunch ‘ems’ and went for the coffee pot.
Coffee helped to clear heads and improve Sam’s mood. He didn’t even complain when he noticed Pax was dunking a third cookie in his milk, or Jack had put more chocolate chips in his oatmeal. Or that Dean had found whipped cream somewhere and was piling his bowl with cookie crumbs and chocolate syrup.
“That doesn’t count as oatmeal,” was the most he said as Dean took his seat at the table.
“It’s Christmas. Calories don’t count on Christmas!”
Jack’s eyes widened, “Is that true?”
Cas muttered unintelligibly into his coffee.
It wasn’t until the boys had put their empty bowls into the sink and Dean was enjoying his second cup of coffee as they wandered toward the foyer that he realized something was different.
There had been one, maybe three presents under the tree the night before when he’d crept in to put Castiel’s in the branches, but now there were neat little mounds of them, and a bright white note pinned to the tree.
“Merry Humbug, Winchesters. From your friendly neighborhood Trickster-Claus!”
There were packages from Bobby and Ellen, Jody, Donna and the girls. Garth and his family. Jo and Ritter, even an envelope from Becky and her husband.
“How the hell did he do that!” Dean almost spilled his coffee in shock.
“Pocket universe!” Jack said simply and reached for a package. “He promised to teach me how to do it.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Castiel said warily.
Pax shoved a lumpy parcel under his nose. “It’s from Grandpa Bobby.”
Sam grinned and pulled a chair over to sit in.
Bobby sent them all scarves and hats in various colors. Ellen gave the boys each twenty dollars and letters about the months they had been apart.
Jody and Donna sent photos and practical gifts: socks, and pocket knives inscribed with protection sigils. Claire had written a long letter to Castiel and sent photos to Dean of her first car, a Pontiac Firebird she was rebuilding with Bobby’s help.
Pax got a set of composition notebooks filled with Castiel’s neat tight script on history and Enochian magic. Jack, a pair of notebooks himself, empty with the note to write his experiences, to keep his own history and thoughts, and fully enjoy the human side of himself.
Sam got a series of 'Dad gifts’: a coffee cup Pax had painted up for him, a tie pin of a moose with red rhinestone eyes (Dean cackled when he saw it), a book of poetry, and some new insoles for his running shoes.
Even Castiel got a ‘Dad’ gift’ from Jack, a new tie in a deep purple with a matching pocket square. They both seem pleased with this.
Dean received not one, but two pairs of house slippers, one in dark brown leather, and the other that looked like sharks.
Then Pax pulled the wrapped gift Dean had hidden out of the tree and handed it to Castiel. “It’s from Dean!”
Cas looked at him curiously, then at Dean and back. He took the package and held it reverently for a moment, as if he could feel the invisible intent Dean had put into it.
“Uh— Sorry it’s not very fancy… I didn’t really have a chance to go anywhere except to the triple-ex mart.” He scratched his head and ignored Sam’s disapproving glare.
Cas opened it with as much care as he had put into all the others but there was something in his eyes that was different, glowing from within.
The cigar box didn't look much different than when Dean had found it. He had cleaned it up, oiled the hinges and hobby glued some felt to the inside because Cas’s identification was legitimate and deserved to be taken care of.
“I put a little pocket inside there.” He motioned nervously to the felt. “Cas, are you okay?”
Cas was staring at the inside of the lid, where Dean had used his pocket knife to scratch the two letters ‘C. W.’ in slightly crooked lines.
Their eyes met, and Dean saw galaxies in all that blue again, felt angel wings wrap around him as Cas drew him in by the back of the neck for a kiss.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m perfect.”
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