Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Apparently, the festive vomit of twenty twenty one was not a one off.

It’s been approximately thirteen hours since Dean crawled out of the house this morning and at some point during that time Castiel has resurrected the ghosts of Christmas past, presents and future to clog up their hallway and hike their goddamn electricity bill with the sheer quantity of goddamn lights. The tinsel is back on the door handle. The whole fucking place smells of gingerbread. He can hear snatches of Christmas music and he’s just about to greet Cas with a string of well chosen swear words when a five year old attempts to take him out by running smack bang into his knees.

“Hey Robbie,” Dean says, bending down to scoop him up and set him on his hip, following the sound of freaking Wham into the kitchen to find his husband, brother and niece decorating Christmas cookies. And, yeah, collectively they make up most of his favourite people in existence: Robbie’s a real little person these days with opinions and questions and attitude problem to rival teenage Sam Winchester, Mary is just beginning to toddle and going at some serious speeds and Sam is his best friend snot-nosed pain-in-the-ass-little-brother and Cas is Castiel , but Dean is really goddamn tired. He’s midway through a stint of twelve-on-twelve-off-shifts that are kicking his ass and, although there is a high chance that he did know that they had the clan coming over tonight, he doesn’t have the energy for it right now. He’s tired. He hates Wham. He wants to drink as many beers as feels is responsible when he’s due back at work in twelve hours (two) and not talk to anyone, and he already knew that wasn’t going to happen because they’re definitely technically in a fight that they need to hash out, but he still wasn’t expecting this.

“Hello Dean,” Castiel says, proffering a glass of mulled wine that Dean accepts because it’s wet and alcoholic and does smell delicious, even though mostly Dean wants to object on principle.

“Merry Christmas, apparently.” Dean says, raising an eyebrow. Robbie struggles to be let down to head back to his seat at the head of the table next to the bowl of icing. It’s only half six. Even now Cas has a medical job with ‘boundaries’ at the nice practice that has set hours and no shift patterns and a lot more bandaids and non-emergency consults than deaths and acute pain and blood all over the fucking floor, he still can’t have been home for that long. Dean’s slightly baffled about how any of this actually happened. There’s a touch of Robbie in the way the bottom part of the Christmas tree has a helluva lot more decorations than the top, but even with some extra hands this is a lot of Christmas to wreak on a place in a few hours.

“Robbie expressed disappointment about the lack of Christmas last time he was here,” Cas says, which is definitely, theoretically an explanation, but still doesn’t answer most of the half formed questions in Dean’s head. Half of his brain is still at the hospital negotiating catheters and ward politics and the new dickbag chief of staff and at least part of the rest of it spiralled into all that other stuff weeks ago, so he doesn’t quite know what the real question is. He swallows down whatever it is and smothers it in mulled wine. It’s slightly lukewarm. He can feel Cas’ eyes on him. That’s a good indication that their argument from two nights ago that they haven’t talked about yet has not been forgotten.

“Uncle Dean, do you want a cookie?” Robbie asks, hitting him with the big eyes and holding a cookie crudely shaped like Rudolph and smeared in pink icing aloft. He’s got a worrying feeling that these cookies were both baked and iced by the tag team of Sam’s rugrats and he’s spent enough time with children to know that they’re all very cute cesspits of germs and disease, and Dean’s staring down the barrel of another short-staffed Christmas season and he is absolutely fucking not getting sick this year. It’s a helluva lot better than it’s been. Finally, coronavirus seems to have calmed down till it’s relatively low down their list of worries, but it’s sure as hell not gone, and it’s been a bad year for respiratory illnesses all round — this years’ flu variant is a bitch — and the hospital infrastructure never really got off its knees. He doesn’t think the cookie is worth it.

“Ah, Dean hasn’t had his dinner yet, Robbie,” Cas says, because after this many years he can basically read his mind.

“Yeah, sorry bud.” Dean says. The look of disappointment is a strong indicator that Robbie was really offering as a cover to claim another for himself, and Dean kind of admires the pureness in the outworking of his emotions. He drags his gaze across to Sam, whose hair’s gotten even more stupid since Dean saw him last, and who was never that easy to placate with extra cookies. His drug of choice was always the answer to awkward questions until his drug of choice was actual narcotics, and all of that feels a world away from right now. “Hey Sam. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Jess is hosting book club,” Sam says, readjusting where Mary is balanced sitting on his knee, gaze mostly focused on her attempts at icing and her sticky, sticky fingers.

“What’s the book?”

“Don’t think that’s the point of book club. Think it’s mostly about drinking wine and being child free.” Sam says, glancing up at him and assessing him. “You look tired.”

“Yeah, well, six-sixes are a,” Dean pauses and sensors himself. “Pain,” he finishes, as Cas sets down the food that was apparently in the oven in front of him, like some glorious domestic god of a husband, except that dinner itself is quorn dinosaurs, fries and peas because it’s Robbie’s favourite. Dean doesn’t really know why that makes him want to cry, except that Cas is wearing a goddamn Christmas Sweater and he looks all handsome and well-rested and happy, with this smudge of icing on his collar, and either they picked out the longest Wham remix of all time or it’s on repeat because it’s still going on about last fucking Christmas and Dean doesn’t want to think about Last Christmas, or the one before it, or any of the ones before that, and his kitchen is full of people he loves and that’s finally all above board but he’s so damn tired that he can’t deal with any of them.

“I should go study,” Dean says, thickly, and takes his goddamn quorn dinosaurs into the only room downstairs that has thus far dodged the tinsel and pulls out his stack of books, and tries to suffocate his thoughts with diagnostic theory.

*

Sam is the one that disturbs him twenty minutes later, when Dean has beheaded both dinosaurs and written out some three direct quotes from his textbooks that he definitely does not remember and doesn’t give a damn about this exact second.

“How’s it going?” Sam asks, stepping into the room and picking up one of his books. Dean grunts rather than offers an actual reply. The irony that he’s now avoiding speaking to his little brother after spending so much of the last two years wanting to see and talk to him is not lost on him -- he has been really fucking aware that he’s being an idiot about everything, constantly facing himself down in the mirror and spitting truths he supposedly learned during the pandemic back in his face -- but he doesn’t know how verbalise any of it.

“What’s up with you and Cas?” Sam asks, because apparently they’re skipping subtlety altogether.

“Who says there’s anything up with me and Cas?” Dean deadpans.

“You hiding in here with your textbooks.” Sam says, waving around Dean’s copy of the Nurse Practitioner Certification Intensive Review with this authoritative air like he really did finish his law degree.

“You think these exams are a cake walk?”

“No,” Sam says, “But I think Cas is a medical professional who could probably help, and I don’t know if straight after a twelve hour shift is a prime study opportunity.”

“Sam,” Dean says, with forced patience that he’s not really feeling, taking the damn book out of his hands, “With all due respect, piss off.”

“Oh,” Sam says, “Are you having your annual domestic?”

“Fuck you.”

“Huh. Are we about to have our annual domestic?”

“Oh yeah, happy fucking Christmas, Sam. Really thought you were gonna grow out of being so damn annoying.” Dean says, aggressively flicking to another page and fixing his gaze on it, even though Sam’s right that he doesn’t have the capacity to absorb anything else right now. The problem is he’s been feeling fully saturated for most of the last two weeks, which has not been good news for the last, final, dredging credits he needs to finish his masters.

“Apparently not,” Sam says, perching on the edge of his desk. “So, is work bad?”

“Hmm,” Dean mutters. Comparatively, it’s okay. Winter-busy rather than apocalyptically busy (which are kinda different if you squint), and he has temporarily dropped his hours in an attempt to actually finish studying but that ‘extra’ time his been swallowed up in some shitty shift patterns and the minor emotional breakdown that he’s been having about things that he has yet to talk to Sam about.

“Look,” Sam says, “I’m not trying to butt in, Dean, but I just wondered if Cas was okay.”

“Feels like something you should ask Cas,”

“Because when I mentioned Jess’ book club, he seemed abnormally into having us over, and then he started talking about helping out with school pick up and I really struggle to get out of work on time on Wednesdays and…”

“It’s —- ah, fuck, it’s Wednesday,” Dean says, standing up before Sam can ramble any further about Jess and book club and whatever it is that he’s rambling on about because —- really, crazed shift patterns make days of the week meaningless and Dean hasn’t had a damn clue about the day of the week for most of last decade, but he really should’ve known it was Wednesday today. Half of his current bad mood is about not being able to move his shifts around and then he didn’t even …. He didn’t even call. He didn’t goddamn text.

“Cas,” Dean says, stalling in the doorway and watching Cas bent down to Robbie’s level and taking him into his sweater, this grove in his forehead. Cas looks up and meets his eyes and there’s some hurt packed in there and --- and Dean’s a fucking idiot, absolutely, and he looks all unsure as he drops his gaze back down to Robbie. “Cas, sorry.”

Cas blinks at him.

“We can talk about this later,” Cas says, standing up to his full height.

“Okay,” Dean says, dodging the look from Sam, he’s been doing a lot of that lately and, no goddamn wonder Cas had time to Christmas-ify the house, given he finished work at lunch.

“Well,” Sam says, scoping up an armful of unconscious Mary from their sofa and re-balancing her, grabbing the diaper bag with his other hand, and it’s hard not to brand him as a success story when he’s basically a fucking advert for fatherhood at this point, but then none of it is ever that simple. “We should probably go, anyway. We’re getting a little close to bedtime.”

“ I’ll help you to the car.” Cas says, proffering a hand to Robbie. Apparently, the Christmas cookies have been boxed-up and Castiel picks those up too. “We’ll let you know when we have Dean’s shifts, but it won’t be a problem for Jessica’s parents to join us,” Cas says, and he loses Sam’s reply as they walk out to the car, but it’s good that Cas is finally getting his big dream of hosting Christmas, even if the date hasn’t been worked out yet. Dean stands in his aggressively Christmassy kitchen and feels the guilt curdle in his stomach, because once again, he’s the fly in the ointment that is Christmas. He’s now officially the one thing stopping them from having their holiday-card version of the season and —— and it’s freaking Wednesday.

Cas comes back in very quietly.

“So,” Dean says, worrying the bottom of his lip, as Cas loads the dishwasher, not meeting his eye. “Did, uh ---- was everything okay?”

“I would have called you if it wasn’t.” Cas says, and that’s his clinical, doctor voice, which is bad. Dean’s crap at communicating with Doctor Castiel at the best of times and Cas usually only pulls it out when he’s wounded.

“Yeah, but …”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice all deep and impassioned, cutting across him, and tone shifting is also bad . Dean swallows. “We knew it was likely we would have to tag team these appointments.”

“I tried to swap shifts,” Dean says, through the knife-lump of guilt in his throat. He could’ve done more if he’d have been prepared to go to Missouri with the reason, but for some reason he’s been keeping that locked up in his gut and not talking about it. He doesn’t trust in hope easy. Neither of them do, but Cas has been getting better at it.

“I know that,” Cas says, “I am not upset you missed the appointment.”

“I should’ve called.”

“Yes, you should,” Cas agrees, head slightly tilted as he looks at him. “I have had bad shifts before.”

“I don’t even know what day of the week it is, man,” Dean says, forehead creased, but it’s a shitty excuse and they both know it. It is true, but it’s still crap. “That last swap from nights to days…”

“Dean, I am not mad at you, if that’s what this is.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Cas says, and he looks tired, and upset, and Dean did that. Before he came home he was all glowing and Christmassy and happy, and Dean ruined his good festive cheer with whatever bullshit self-sabotage he’s pulling this time, which means he’s already messing it up. “But you haven’t asked to see the new picture of your son yet. He’s here,” Cas says, sliding a picture out from his wallet. “I’m going to take a shower.”

*

They took an actual vacation in April. Coronavirus cases were finally down again. Cas had new his new job lined up to start when they got back and Dean actually used up some of his accrued leave for first time in years and they had two whole weeks of sitting by the sea talking and eating and having sex and making plans and dreaming and it all felt really clear that they wanted to do it. For something he’d written off easily enough, it had been bubbling up in his gut ever since Cas had raised the topic again last Christmas and it felt like an easy decision by the coast in California. They wrote a list of things they wanted to do before that - -- and Dean finally finishing his long-stalled progress towards before a nurse practitioner that he’d all but fucking abandoned over the course of the pandemic had been on that list --- and then they’d kickstarted the process thinking it would take a long time, and then it kind of hadn’t.

They’d been on that nebulous waiting list for all of three weeks before getting a call and now Dean’s holding a goddamn 3D sonogram and, obviously, because he’s a self-destructive asshole, they still haven’t actually told anyone about any of it, just in case something goes wrong.

And technically Dean’s pretty sure this particular fight actually started two days ago.

They were having a really good night. Date night, which is this thing they’ve been trying to do since Castiel changed jobs and they sometimes managed to schedule their lives in a way that carved out actual time to spend time together, and they’d gone out and had dinner and then Cas asked him what he was most afraid of and Dean started blurting out that he was most afraid of their kid growing up and finding drugs and ending up hating their guts because they’d end up hating everything that wasn’t their next hit and Cas had gotten this look on his face. He’d said that it wouldn’t happen and Dean had accused him of implying that that only poor kids took drugs and that he was some white-trash while Castiel was some high-and-mighty ivy league Doctor that was too good for him and a whole lot of baseless dumb shit that hadn’t been about anything except Dean spiraling, and obviously, Cas was being reasonable and level-headed while Dean was being completely insane, but he’s not altogether feeling any more level headed now. He feels oddly wary of Cas even though he absolutely, logically knows it’s not his fault, and every time he thinks to hard his head spirals, and now he’s facing down this 3D image of this fucking baby he’s pretty much free falling.

*

“Cas,” Dean calls, the second he hears the shower click off, sitting on the edge of their bed. He’s been sitting and waiting in silence, staring, brain stuck on the word ‘son’ on a goddamn loop. “He’s pretty cute for an alien.”

“Dean,” Cas says, emerging from the bathroom in his cloud of steam and a towel, the smallest hint of a smile pooling at the corner of his mouth.

“Awh, come on,” Dean says, his voice a lot more level than he feels, because that smile is worth pulling himself together for. He wants to win more of those. “Regardless of provenance, you know these 3D sonograms are freaky.”

“They’re technologically remarkable,” Cas says, like they hadn’t actually already had the conversation that it was medically kind of unnecessary, wouldn’t really give them anymore information, prompted some long drawn out conversation about it largely being a money-making scheme preying off parents, that Cas would rarely recommend them unless someone had very good medical insurance or particular reasons for concern, until Dean had raised an eyebrow at him and pointed out that, clearly, he wanted to do it anyway.

“You remember Mary’s at 24 weeks?” Dean says, “Could barely keep a straight face.”

“As I remember it, you didn’t,” Cas says, “Jessica was very upset with you.”

“He’s got your scrunched up frown.”

“If you’re not going to take this seriously, give him back,” Cas says, holding out his hand.

“Hey,” Dean says, drawing back instinctively, “Don’t get him wet.”

“I’ve got copies,” Cas says, something in his expression melting slightly. Dean swallows. Sets the sonogram down next to the bed, then vaguely reaches for him. He settles with a hand on Cas' hip, looking up at him.

“Sorry for being an asshole,” Dean says, “How’s Kelly feeling?”

“Physically, well,” Castiel says, “She’s become determined that Columbia are going to reject her Early Decision application and is in a dispute with her mother about curfew.”

“Remember Sam going through the college drama,” Dean says, drawing back slightly, because it’s not a good memory and it’s too close to various other things that have been floating around his head too much lately. “What are schools like round here? Should we be… should we be selling up and moving?”

“No,” Cas says, forehead creasing, this groove of worry, “Dean, I think we have taken on enough.”

Dean hums in response.

“How was work?”

“Okay,” Dean says, slight hoarse, tried, “Well, three cardiac arrests, one responded to CPR, but he’d signed a DNR and someone had fucked up the paperwork, so we had one family kicking off about their Dad not kicking it next to this grieving widow, so the authorities are pissed,” Dean says, and that’s the thing, is jarring to jump from thinking about all of that pain to thinking about freaking babies, and at some point all of his giddy excitement over it hardened into paralytic fear. “Dorothy has coronavirus again. Third December in a row. It was —— same old,” Dean says, “Just tried.”

“Only one more twelve shift of this cycle,” Cas says, smoothing his hands over Dean’s shoulders, and that’s nice. It feels like it chases aware some of the bone-weariness of it all.

“Yeah, but what’s the point of a day off if you’re at work?” Dean says. “Guess I can study.”

“And rest, Dean. We have Saturday off together.”

“True,” Dean says, managing a smile.

“Get some sleep, Dean,” Cas says.

“In a bit,” Dean says, “Didn’t finish eating yet. I’ll come up soon.”

He puts on Doctor Sexy as he finishes eating his cold quorn dinosaurs and stares at the picture of his son until he can barely see straight, for a long time after he should’ve gone to sleep.

Chapter Text

Apparently, Castiel’s cutesy Doctor’s Practice is the kind of place they decorate for Christmas.

The hospital pretty much gave up on that kind of thing during the pandemic and this year Dean’s witnessed someone resurrected one solo, sad Christmas tree in the foyer and a complete lack of Christmas spirit elsewhere, but this place has garlands strung up and festive themed health posters about respiratory illnesses and not drinking too much.

“—- if it persists in three weeks, make another appointment and… Dean,” Castiel says, walking out along the corridor with a patient. He-stalls in his monologue to take in Dean leaning against the counter and chatting to the receptionist.

“What’s up, doc?” Dean says, smiling.

“This is a surprise,”

“Friday night night-off, man. Gotta be a date night opportunity.”

“This is my husband,” Castiel says, turning to the patient with an achingly serious explanation, like that wasn’t taken as read, then turning back to him. “I have two more appointments.”

“Tshk,” Dean tuts, fake looking at his watch, “Thought you finished at five.”

“ Ignore him,” Cas says, pointedly, to the three people left in his little waiting room; a man and woman-with-baby combo, all of them watching the show. This place suits him better than the hospital. He always seems more relaxed here, the few times that Dean has dropped by. He’ll actually engage in Dean turning their relationship into more of a performative thing to put people at ease, rather than quote lines about professional boundaries and cold-fish him. “I used to work with him at the hospital and he thinks he’s being funny.”

“Sweetheart, I’m hilarious,” Dean smiles, offering him a wink. “No problem. I’ll book us a table someplace for six, kay? You go do your thing, I’m good.”

“Hannah, will you get Dean some coffee while he waits?”

“Awh, I’m good,” Dean says, “Get on with Doctoring, these people have places to be. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay,” Cas says, offering him a final warm smile before he calls in the next patient.

By the time Hannah-the-receptionist has gotten him a coffee in what Dean’s sure is a blatant abuse of power, Dean’s managed to pull out his textbook to study then totally gotten sucked into a conversation with the woman-with-baby, who is stressed as hell and jumped on the implication that he’s any kind of medical professional.

“I get the desire to google,” Dean says, “And yeah, I’d read about there being a spike in Strep A in the Uk too, but —— we’ve had a pretty vicious bout of flu too, and either way I say don’t panic,” Dean says, “Cas is a good Doctor, he’ll do the tests and tell you what’s up, and I know it’s scary when they’re sick, but they’re a helluva lot stronger than they look.”

“I’m just,” The woman --- Nora, according to the introduction she gave him when she started this conversation --- says, blinking rapidly. “Really --- when they called me and said Doctor M ilton-Winchester would see her before the weekend if we could get here for five, I was just … so relieved. They’d said there were no appointments and I had work, and I…”

“You’re lucky,” Dean says, nudging her with his arm and offering her an encouraging smile, “You caught him feeling broody.”

She lets out a shaky laugh and rubs her face.

“Know I’m being silly.”

“N’ah,” Dean says, “You’re being a good Mom, and of course he’s gonna squeeze you in and make sure you’re both set. What’s her name?”

“This is Tanya,” She says, bouncing her anxiously on her knee.

“Hey there Tanya,” Dean says, offering her a finger to grab hold of. She reaches out and curls her fingers around it. “Your Mom loves you a lot Tanya, and Doctor Cas is gonna see you in a minute and work out why you’re feeling so hot, hmm? Hannah, any chance we could get Nora here a cup of coffee too? Sounds like it’s been a crappy day.”

“You don’t have to. I’m causing a fuss,” Nora says, “I’m making you late for your date.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dean shrugs, “First eight years of our relationship we both worked shifts at the hospital. This point, we consider a fifteen minute conversation in the parking lot to be date night, so you’d have to make us really late to dinner to make a dent on the evening. Nora, you got this.”

“It’s just, doing this on my own,” She says, blinking rapidly, “I didn’t think it would happen like this and I just --- I need to make her happy, and it’s nearly Christmas, and she can’t be sick at Christmas. It’s her first one.”

“We’ve got a few weeks till then,” Dean says, “Ten days. That’s a long time to get well, Nora, and --- I’m gonna tell you a secret,” Dean says, “Something I learned in my years of medical training. She’s not gonna remember this Christmasmas. She’s six months old. It doesn’t matter. You looking after yourself, taking the pressure off, is gonna make a helluva lot more difference to this little girl's life and happiness than you killing yourself over putting up a tree. You’re doing great.”

Nora sucks in a deep breath. Some of the tension drops out of her shoulders. She rubs her face and steals herself.

“Do you and Doctor Milton-Winchester have any kids?”

“No,” Dean says, mouth feeling slightly dry, because that answers got a time limit. “We’re, uh, we’re working on it, actually.”

“Oh, good luck. Thank you for being so nice to me.”

“Hey, no problem,” Dean says, as Hannah comes by with another cup of coffee and passes it to her. Nora accepts it slightly shakily and Dean tries to offer Hannah a charming smile that says I-know-this-isn’t-your-job-and-I-appreciate-it. “The festive season is tough, I get it. You want me to take her a minute, so you can drink your coffee?”

“Yeah,” Nora nods, eyes shining again, and then Dean gets a lap full of clammy, upset six-month-old.

Sam was the first baby he ever held, fresh from hospital and still so freaking tiny, and his Mom had sat Dean on her lap and then they both held tiny Sammy together, and she whispered that he had to be real careful with him, Dean, and that it was part of his big brother job to help look after him now. He’s been getting flashbacks of all of it lately, and there’s been babies goddamn everywhere, and he feels a fresh wave of that uneasy terror as he blinks down at baby Tanya blue eyes and clammy skin and hopes to hell she’s not really sick.

*

“Nora told me you’d been preaching the gospel of anti-festive spirit,” Cas says, when they’re meandering their way home from their date, Cas driving because Dean definitely drank too much of the bottle-of-wine to share without really thinking about it. He looks good behind the wheel of the impala, in the way that he always looks these days, because Castiel is totally thriving: he runs to work in the morning (which Dean still considers to make him a bit of a freak , actually, but he understands is objectively, apparently, a healthy decision) and sleeps eight hours a night, and he cooks, and he breaks the Doctor’s Practice rules to fit in extra appointments with anxious mothers and he is going to be such a fucking good Dad.

“Being a single mom is a tough gig without adding in Christmas guilt,” Dean says, “Was little Tanya okay? There is some nasty shit going around.”

“Yes,” Cas smiles, “Nothing serious.”

“That’s good,” Dean nods, leaning back against the edge of the seat and exhaling. Some tension he didn’t know he was still carrying in his lungs dissipates, which is probably bad. He’s usually better at compartmentalising than this.

“She said you were very kind to her.”

“We, uh, Sammy got sick one year. Well. Kid was sick all the time, actually, but —— one time it was bad enough that Dad actually took us to the Docs and I remember everyone being pissy and stressed about him crying in the waiting room. I remember being scared,” Dean says, something sharp rising up in his throat out of nowhere in particular. He’s around stressed sick people all the goddamn time. Exuding reassurance and confidence is pretty much his best trait at work, so he’s got no idea why he’s suddenly thinking about John Winchester’s stoicism in the damned waiting room: balled up fists on his knees, Sam crying in his stroller, Dean sitting completely-still desperately wishing he could do something to help. “You’re doing good there, Cas. Really good. It suits you.”

“Dean,” Cas says, looking at him in the rearview mirror, “They’d give you a job, too, when you’ve finished your exams.”

“Thought we agreed you weren’t going to guilt me about my shifts,”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Cas says, “You seem tired.”

“It’s December,” Dean says, “Everyone spends December tired.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“You know Christmas just gets to me,” Dean says, his chest feeling tight. “It gets under my skin.”

“I do know that,” Cas says, pulling up in their driveway, cutting the engine and looking at him, “But, things are changing, Dean. Our lives are changing.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” Dean says, “We worked out a juggling plan that the adoption people approved of.”

“We can change plans,” Cas says, assessing him. “You could keep your reduced hours.”

“Cas, I know I freaked out on you, but a”—-.”

“You accused me of ‘ slumming it’ with you,” Castiel says. “After nine years, Dean, where I think I’ve made my feelings about how incredible I think you are very clear. I am just… expressing concern.”

“Noted,” Dean says, his voice slightly thick, “But. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“ Another surprise,” Cas says, frowning at him. “You have been busy.”

“Come on,” Dean blurts out, bursting into motion, out the car and heading to the house, past all the goddamn tinsel and their terrifying Christmas tree and pausing in the doorway of the spare room they labelled as ‘the nursery’ to absolutely no one but themselves because they’re too damn scared to tell anyone else. In reality, he probably should’ve spent a lot more of the day sleeping or studying, but he woke up too early feeling restless and antsy and slightly crushed by this overwhelming sense that he’s totally fucking this up and he hasn’t even really started yet, but there was something cathartic about sifting through all the crap they’d accrued and stripping it back down to nothing. They haven’t redecorated this room since they first bought the place, because it’s been that corner of the house that they stored all that extra, extraneous stuff they barely used and could never be bothered to sort through, and he made pretty decent headway in boxing everything up, washing down and sanding the walls. Making space. Making some attempt to prove to Cas that he can do this, even if he forgets the days of the damn week and misses appointments and loses his head.

“Dean,” Castiel says, standing in the doorway and blinking around at the newly emptied room. “This is a very strange definition of a ‘rest day.’”

He’s been in Castiel’s first bedroom back in his childhood home and he’s seen pictures of the cutesy ABC wallpaper and the big white cot. Each of the Miltons had their own bedroom in their big red brick house full of expectation and judgement. Dean’s first bedroom burnt to the ground and Sam took his first steps in a motel room with grey-sheets and perpetually damp-walls with only Dean there to see them, and he’s gotta do better.

“Picked up some colour swatches,” Dean says, “I dunno what you wanted to do about that. I, uh, I liked some of the greens, but I didn’t know if that was too tied up in some of that gender bullcrap. Yellow is neutral, right? But it kinda makes my head hurt. Can’t remember what Sam did for Robbie,”

“Teal. Jessica picked.” Cas says, dropping Dean’s hand to curl his fingers around his arm, settling into his side. “We should buy a cot,”

“Is that tempting fate? She could still change her mind.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cas says, “But she’s very sure, Dean. She knows what she wants.”

“Hmm,” Dean says, snaking his arms around Cas, absorbing the familiar warmth of his chest, breathing him in and trying to fortify himself. It feels easier with Cas tucked up against him, after an evening of just food and wine and quality time, like maybe they can fill the room with warmth and love, and then he thinks about Nora trying to hold it all together on her own and John Winchester watching it all burn to the ground. He pulls Cas in tighter and shuts his eyes.

“I like the idea of green,” Cas says, pulling back enough to touch his jaw.

“Awesome,” Dean says and lets himself be pulled into a kiss.

*

He wakes up too early again, but this time it’s a mythical Saturday off which means the other half of his bed is filled by six foot of clingy doctor, and neither of them have anywhere they need to actually be until tomorrow.

“Dean,” Cas says, tightening his grip on Dean’s waist and growling the words into Dean’s neck, all breathy and pissed off and brilliant. “I am a medical professional. You are overtired and stressed and I highly recommend you stay in bed .”

“I’m a medical professional too, Sunshine.” Dean returns, but it’s half hearted and slow. Their legs are tangled together.

“You can’t medical professional at yourself ,” Cas says, “There are ethical codes of conduct.”

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to medical professional while you’re cuddling your patient in your underwear, either.” Dean throws back.

“See, you’re definitely ready for the AANPs.” Dean snorts and shuts his eyes. “How is studying going?”

“Crap,” Dean mutters, “Pretty sure nothing’s gone into my head for a month.”

“You need to rest, Dean,” Cas says, shifting around and touching his face, running a thumb over the rough of his cheek. “I prescribe a morning off. Bed rest with close doctor supervision.”

“You sure make up a lot of bullcrap when you’re clingy.”

“I can help you study this afternoon.”

“Thought we were gonna try paint before Christmas got too crazy,” Dean says, “I’ll—- I’ll be okay, Cas. Got some time in the week.”

“I can quiz you while you paint,” Cas says, “Multitasking.”

“‘m I allowed to take a leak?”

“That seems reasonable,” Cas says, releasing him, “And then you’re coming back here so I can spoon you.”

“Guess if it’s prescribed to me,” Dean says, leaning over to kiss his cheek before he extracts himself and pads across to the bathroom. He takes the time to splash water on his face and brush his teeth too and comes out to an empty bedroom. He gets back into bed anyway and pulls the covers round his knees. One of the copies of the sonogram is still on the bedside table. Dean doesn’t pick it up.

Before he can settle too deep into overthinking, Cas reappears with two coffees and the top sheet of a prescription pad, where the dumbass has written ‘cuddling’.

“You’re such a dork,” Dean smiles, as Cas climbs back into bed next to him and smiles, this lovely thing that crinkles at the corner of his eyes, and the only reason Dean doesn’t kiss him stupid is because he doesn’t want to spill the coffee. Sometimes, he can’t really believe that some people have a Saturday morning every damn week; that there are couples all across the world who get to sit in bed together and make plans, instead of swapping shift schedules, who spend more time talking about date night than shit and piss and death. It’s nice to tilt closer to this axis. It’s been revolutionary to have regular dates, regular sex, a glimpse of regular lives.

“We have an email,” Cas says, his expression blossoming into a smile as he thumbs on his phone. “Kelly got into Columbia. She heard yesterday.”

“Wow,” Dean says, his chest tight, “Guess when we fuck him up we can’t blame it on genetics. Tell her —- tell her congratulations,” Dean says, cradling his coffee and blinking out over his knees. Cas is lost in typing out his reply, which is probably something a lot more fitting than Dean’s weak tribute, because Cas actually kind of helped. He did the Early Decision thing way back when, apparently, and Dean doesn’t know anything about it, because he never did the fancy school thing and Sam took that whole process and hid it away from everyone as his introduction to learning how to lie to everyone: stage one college applications, stage two narcotics. Cas talked her through some of the pros and cons, and provided this neutral kind of encouragement without any actual advice that he felt was appropriate given the circumstances.

Kelly’s going to be the first one in her family to go to a good school. She wants to work at the White House and change the world and Dean fully believes that she’s going to do it, because if she can navigate this at eighteen then Dean’s sure she can do anything she sets her mind to.

She wants her son to grow up in a stable, loving home and, for some reason, she thinks Dean is a part of that.

“She also wanted to know if we had any more thoughts on the naming issue?” Cas asks, looking up from his phone.

“I, I dunno,” Dean says, “Can we know the name before we decide whether she can or can’t pick it?”

“That isn’t very in keeping with the spirit,”

“What if she wants to call him Wolfgang, or something,” Dean says, “Our son isn’t being called Wolfgang Milton-Winchester. Actually, that’s badass.”

“You raise a good point. She said… if we hadn’t already decided, she’d like us to consider naming him after her father,” Cas says.

“Well, we should be able to work that out from some of the other paperwork, right? Dean asks, taking another sip of his coffee.

“Her father's name was…. “Cas says, glancing back through the emailed documents, frowning. “Jack Kline.” Castiel says, and Dean’s stomach twists, something sharp sticking in the back of his throat. “ Jack Winchester.”

Jack. Jack. That feels realer than anything else has so far, this shadow of a tiny baby that’s gonna be in his arms, vulnerable and small, relying on Dean.

“What happened to ‘Milton’?” Dean asks, his heart beating double speed.

“I was considering dropping it.” Cas says, turning to assess him.

“Won’t that piss off your Mom?”

“I’ll appease her with a grandchild,” Castiel says, “I hope you’re prepared that from next year, we will never be able to escape her for Christmas again.”

“Ah, crap,”

“I’d like us to all have the same name.”

“I could be Dean Milton-Winchester,”

“You didn’t want to do that,” Cas says, touching his arm. “I’d like to just be a Winchester. It’s the superior part of my name. What do you think of Jack?”

“It’s nice that she wants to honour her Dad,” Dean says, quiet. Jo Harvelle named her son Will and Sam named his son after Bobby Singer, because neither of them were ever going to immortalise John Winchester with a namesake. Sam didn’t even give him a middle name, like shouldering Robbie with the legacy of a man who drank himself into a grave and lost almost everyone who ever cared about him out of sheer stubbornness was too much of a burden. “We were named after our maternal grandparents, you know,” Dean says, leaning back against the headboard, “Samuel and Deanna Campbell.”

“Dean came first,” Cas says, tilting his head to look at him.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, “Come from a strong line of shitty father figures. Samuel was a bit of a dick, from what I can work out. I like Jack,” Dean says, setting his coffee down and carefully picking up the sonogram, “Jack Winchester.”

He spends a lot of the day wondering what he’d have to do now so that, decades from now, Jack would so easily write off ever naming his kids Dean.

*

On Tuesday, Dean finally grows a goddamn pair and sends an email to request being put on the waiting list for hospital Daycare, which obviously results in him being pulled into a meeting with Missouri and being lectured for a long goddamn time about being cagey and not admitting why he wanted last week off for that appointment, and then she hands him his Christmas schedule and by some total fucking miracle Dean is actually not working Christmas, which means, all by accident and no thanks at all to Dean, most of Cas’ festive dreams are coming true.

Chapter Text

They were supposed to be telling Sam and Jess the ‘big news’ today, but it became pretty clear five minutes after they got through the door that they’re having a bad parenting day.

“ I hate you, Daddy!” Robbie declares, whole face red in a way that drops years off him, so he looks more like a toddler than the tiny adult he does most of the time, attempting to lash out and hit him in the chest

“Robbie,” Sam says, in that calm, authoritative voice that apparently isn’t goddamn working today. Dean gets it. Christmas falling on a Sunday makes school breaks start hella early and he’s out of routine and tired and hopped up on sugar and psyched about Santa and, also, Robert Winchester is five years old, and they all know he doesn’t mean it, but he just….

Sam was five the first time he told Dean he hated him, too, in a similar temper tantrum over the rest of a box of Lucky Charms. He’d actually been a relatively adaptable toddler, always asking questions but content enough to fit in with the routine, but school introduced him to the concept of ‘normal’ that haunted him for the next two decades. Dean told him he couldn’t have the rest of the Lucky Charms and that Dean was going to be the one to walk him to school, and Sam kicked off, these great glugging tears, with a whole litany of complaints: it wasn’t fair, he didn’t want Dean, he hated Dean. The last part stuck with him, sunk under his skin. Dean was nine, so he told Sam to stop being such a big baby and he gave him the cereal even though it meant he didn’t eat and he pretend-punched him on the shoulder and said ‘I hate you too’ before he pulled him into a hug so Sam could wipe all his snotty-tears on Dean’s shirt. He remembered it though.

Sam didn’t say he hated John Winchester till years later and that was calm, stony and reflective, with a nine year old sitting on the floor of a motel room bathroom mostly speaking to his knees, two days after he failed to come home for parents' evening when it looked pretty likely that he wasn’t going to be there for Dean’s birthday either. As far as Dean’s aware, Sam never actually said it to his face, but he doesn’t actually know for sure.

“Robbie, that’s not a very kind thing to say,” Sam says, bent down to his level. He’d sent one of those apologetic, long-suffering looks in Dean’s directions when this meltdown had started, but now he’s all focused on his kid, with this endless patience that does something deep and painful right at the bottom of Dean’s soul.

“I don’t wanna be kind, I don’t want, I don’t want to —-!”

“Hey now, Bud,” Dean says, cutting in.

“Noo,” Robbie roars, “I hate you too, Uncle Dean. I don’t — I don’t want to. ”

“Robert,” Sam says, scooping him up, this flopping sack of screaming kid. He’s calm but firm. “We’re going to your room to calm down.” Sam says, lugging him over his shoulder, and Dean blinks at the empty space.

The last time Sam told him he hated him he was twenty seven, crashing hard from cocaine and desperate for a hit. Dean had already paid for rehab twice. The previous time he’d barely been there a minute before he just goddamn left, and it came out in the wash that most of it was a smokescreen to see how much money they could get out of him, which is funny because Dean never really had any money he kept for himself until long after that anyway because he took the mandate Mary Winchester gave him to be a good big brother, that John Winchester reinforced after the fire to look after Sam really goddamn seriously. He begged Dean to send him six hundred dollars for ‘rent’ and Dean said no, and the reaction felt the same as two decades previously, this string of curses and complaints, about how he needed it, how Dean was killing him, how Sam hated him. Dean punched him, only it wasn’t pretend that time. Dean broke his nose.

Dean dumbly picks up the pens Robbie was refusing to put away and puts the lids on, feeling this nausea rise in the back of his throat. He doesn’t clean the rest of it up because Sam will want Robbie to come and do it himself when he’s chilled out, because Sam is a responsible parent who turns things into teachable moments. Instead, Dean sits down — his knees giving out more than anything else — and picks up one of his scribbled-drawings that are slowly becoming more discernible, and the bumpy, disjointed way he’s written Robbie, 5, across the bottom of the page.

Dean was just shy of five the first Christmas they had without Mary. They were still staying in the temporary accommodation that the insurance company had put them up in, until that grace ran out and the hope ran out and John Winchester had to come up with some kind of a plan that he never really pulled together. John had told him they didn’t have any money for Christmas, and Dean wrapped up a couple of his own toys for Sam in a newspaper he found, and he drew John Winchester a Christmas Card and labeled it Dean, 4 . He didn’t realize John had kept it beyond the day till he found it in one of his old lock ups six months after he died. He’d drawn it on the back of a final demand for a credit card bill.

And Jack isn’t even his yet , but his lungs feel like they’re in this vice, because he can’t handle making Jack hate him too.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, stepping in with a freshly-changed Mary in his arms.

“Hey,” Dean says, blinking up at them, and putting down Robbie’s picture. Next door in the kitchen, something clatters. The distinct muffled sound of Jess swearing at something or other comes through. Upstairs, Robbie screams. “So, today feels like a bad day.”

“Yes,” Cas agrees, “I’ll —-”

“ —- sure,” Dean agrees, thick, as he accepts the toddler pressed into his arms and watches Cas stand up head for the kitchen. Mary blinks up at him, sleepy and currently content. She has Sam’s eyes and Jess’ blonde curls. Dean brushes his fingers through her ringlets and tries to calm down, because this is just another damn day in December, and no one else is spiraling over it. “You don’t hate me yet, do you Mary?” Dean breathes.

She blinks at him and doesn’t say anything, which isn’t a surprise given she doesn’t really talk yet.

“This probably isn’t how you envisioned your night off,” Sam says later, as they load the dishwasher. Cas and Jess took bedtime duty, after a tearful and apologetic Robbie insisted on eating the whole of dinner sat on Sam’s lap. At this point, Dean’s pretty indifferent to eating dinner cold and much later than intended, but he’s been quiet mostly as a real sense of being unqualified washed over him. He doesn’t know how Sam and Jess have the patience, how they carved out the routine, how Dean is ever gonna be able to get home from a twelve hour shift and have anything left in him to teach a tiny little human about being kind and respectful and about regulating your emotions and apologizing. The weight of what they’ve signed up for feels oddly suffocating, but he doesn’t know how to express that without explaining the rest of it. Dean hums in acknowledgment instead. “We let Gabriel take them to see Santa at the mall today.”

“Oh, Jesh,” Dean says, rinsing another dish and passing it Sam’s way. He gets a flash of wrist as Sam reaches for it and for a moment he’s back to checking for track marks, till he blinks himself out of it and shoves it down, because that was then and this is now. “Why?”

“Because free childcare is never free,” Sam says, sagely.

“Sorry,” Dean says, “I should’ve… not like I’ve been at work today. ”

“ Come on,” Sam says, “Last thing you need sandwiched between shifts is daycare duty. Anyway, it’s not like you don’t have your own life, Dean. Cas said you were redecorating and you’ve got your studying.”

“Hmm.”

“The point is, you didn’t reduce your hours to run crowd control with my kids, so don’t apologize about that,” Sam says. “ Great news about your shifts.”

“Yep,” Dean says, “One more day and three night shifts till Christmas. Pretty good.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s up with you?” Sam asks, fixing him with this look.

“I’m fine Sam,” Dean says, blandly, “Never better. Excited about Christmas.”

“Fine.” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “But I’m here when you want to talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about, Sam,” Dean says. “I’m gonna go try hurry Cas up. Hit the road. Gotta be at the hospital for six tomorrow.”

Of course, Robbie insists on getting out of bed to give Dean one of his drawings as a present, hugs him tightly and whispers I love you lots really, Uncle Dean, and when they get home Dean tacks the drawing up on the freshly repainted wall of their green nursery, because Jack won’t be alone, which means things will be better.

*

In his final twelve hour day shift of twenty twenty two, he watches a fifty two year old alcoholic die alone, then he comes home and helps wrap the goddamn Christmas presents, and when they’ve gone to bed he looks up the ghost Facebook page of the kid john Winchester hit on the highway ten years ago and wonders, if they’d never hit each other, whether he’d have sobered up and made something of his life.

*

“We could cancel,” Cas says, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching Dean fumble with the buttons on his shirt.

“Jo planned this damned thing around my shifts,” Dean complains, “You wanna be labeled Mr and Mr Grinch for bailing on the first freaking Christmas party they’ve had for three years?”

“I prefer Doctor Grinch.”

“Asshole.” Dean says, smiling a bit.

“Dean,” Cas says, standing up and crossing their bedroom. “Your family have accused us of this for years. Why change the habit of a decade?” Cas asks, wrapping his arms around him and pressing a kiss under his earlobe.

“I miss social distancing,” Dean says, sinking back into his touch. And obviously it’s not really true, but he still never really got used to crowded places again. The idea of so many people clustered in the Harvelles living room makes him a helluva lot more anxious than it ever used to, but he doesn’t know if that is some pandemic hangover, or if it’s just a side effect of whatever prolonged meltdown he’s having.

“We missed their party in twenty nineteen too, so it would be four years.”

“Goddamnit,” Dean says, “Fucking Christmas.”

“We’ll have to cure this Christmas angst before next year,” Cas says, smiling at him. He’s started to get all creased and beautiful around his eyes when he smiles and he already has a special Jack smile that does complicated and painful things to Dean’s chest.

“Does that mean this year I get to be extra miserable? Get it out of my system now?”

“ Hmm, alright,” Cas says, “You have my full permission to spend this party texting me about how miserable you are about Christmas. Or, we could stay at home. Jo will forgive you, Dean. You were awake half the night and you’re transitioning to nights tomorrow.”

“No,” Dean sighs, because forty eight hours is a shitty time lag to swap from nights to days and he’s already working from a sleep debt and screwed it up by doom scrolling through a dead stranger's Facebook page which says a lot about what level of discipline he has available to him at this point. Cas always was better at changing sleeping time-zones than him. At this stage, he’s pretty sure powering through tonight is the only thing he’s got. “It’ll be better if I stay up I —- we stay in, I’m gonna fall asleep on the sofa and mess up any chance of resetting my sleepin’ schedule and… and we should go. Ellen’s made those mini pies.”

“And Charlie’s coming,” Cas says.

“Should be illegal to have to go to these damn things sober,” Dean mutters, roughly rubbing his face and dropping his hands. “When does it start?”

“Forty minutes ago,” Cas says, “You like your family.”

“Not at Christmas,” Dean says darkly, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Think of the pies, Dean.”

“I rarely think of anything else,” Dean says, grabbing the car keys from the side and heading for the door.

*

“There’s mistletoe,” Dean says, stalling in the doorway, “Didn’t that die with the goddamn pandemic? These people heard of fucking respiratory diseases?”

“ Ah, Dean,” Ellen declares, standing up from her seat at the kitchen table, sweeping over and pulling him into a hug. “Merry Christmas, we put that there just to see your face.”

“Hilarious as always, Ellen.” Dean says, with a fake sunny-smile.

“I’m just insulted you passed up the opportunity to kiss me,” Cas says, “Hello Ellen, we bought a bottle. Merry Christmas.”

“‘Least your boy knows how to greet a lady,” Ellen says, “Your brother’s out back. Both of you, actually.”

“We’ll do the rounds,” Cas says, slipping his hand into Dean’s, steady and sure, and Dean’s endlessly goddamn thankful that he pulls him towards the food before they venture further into the house.

It is good to see Bobby and Rufus holding court in their armchairs, somehow having the kids entranced with some story they’re telling that Dean’s not all together sure is made up or not, and Jo went all out on the guest list. Charlie bounds over to hello, they run into Benny and Jesse before they manage to make it outside and find half the damn hospital in the backyard. It's a wonder there's anyone left actually working.

“I’m going to speak to Meg,” Cas says, spotting her and lighting up in a way that baffles Dean personally, given he's actually met Meg.

“Yeah, have fun with that,” Dean says, letting go of his hand and offering a smile that he hopes is convincing. He dodges everyone he works with because he doesn’t wanna spend a single second thinking about it right now, and heads to Sam and Gabriel instead with this vague idea that they're safe ground.

“Oh, yeah, I hear you’re with us for Christmas this year,” Sam is saying, drink aloft, face aglow from the light of the firepit that has Jo’s idea written all over it. He looks younger lit in fire light. He looks a little like they did the day Dean shoplifted a box of fireworks and they set them off in a field, watching them from the impala, wonder and excitement reflected back in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Gabriel says, offering a hand in acknowledgment of Dean joining the conversation, “Looking forward to sampling little brother’s cooking, hanging out at the old Milton-Winchester homestead. Evening, Winchester senior.”

“He’s gotten pretty into it,” Sam says. “Good news for Dean.”

“I’ve heard rumours,” Gabriel says, “I’ve yet to see the fruit.”

“We tried inviting you for dinner, Gabe,” Dean cuts in, “Not our fault you’re evasive as fuck.”

“The mystery is part of my charm,” Gabriel says, “But, I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen our Cassie Christmas,” Gabriel says.

“Yeah, wow I guess it is,” Sam says, thoughtfully, “See, we’ve always done Christmas together, so the covid years have been weird.”

“Not exactly true,” Dean says, because he doesn’t know why, because he’s tired and saturated and scared. Sam’s brow creases. “Pretty sure there were at least five Christmases where I didn’t know where the hell you were.”

“Okay,” Sam says, this crease forming in his forehead, and Dean suddenly feels absolutely fucking terrible.

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” Dean says, clunky and abrasive, and turns round and heads back towards the house on his own.

*

He avoids Sam for the duration of one shitty alcohol free beer, six mini pies and a painfully long conversation with one of Ellen‘s roadhouse friends who believes that the entire pandemic was a hoax and tells him multiple times about how they don’t believe in vaccinations while Dean tries to back-the-hell-away, before he runs into Sam in goddamn kitchen. Dean heads for the fridge to dig himself out another alcohol free beer that he doesn’t really want to give him some purpose and tries to avoid his eyes.

“Dean.” Sam says, looking at him with his floppy hair and that serious self-assured confidence that he grew into, but Dean so clearly remembers him skinny and eyes-too-big, pupils blown, lying through his fucking teeth, and Dean doesn’t really understand why any of this goddamn matters anymore, when Sam is clearly fine. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Dean says, through gritted teeth.

“You’ve been weird for weeks,” Sam says, “ Weirder than you normally are in December.”

“Can you just drop this crap you always talk about my ‘annual breakdown’? Because you’re driving me crazy.”

“That’s not what I said,” Sam says, shrugging slightly. “But if the shoe fits.”

“Fuck off, Sam,” Dean says, the word coming out cloying and thick. There’s too much emotion in it for Sam to take it as anything other than an invitation to keep talking, which is a problem.

“Dean, we both know you’re going to talk to me about what’s bothering you eventually, so let’s just cut the warm up and actually talk about it.”

“Okay,” Dean says, blood hot in his veins as he sets down his beer on the counter with a click. “If you’re feeling so damn chatty,” Dean says, “If you wanna talk, why don’t you tell me why the hell you did it ?”

Sam pauses, expression frozen.

“Why you picked up the fucking needle in the first place, because we’ve never actually talked about that. Ruby told me. She gave me the little speech about how you felt like the black sheep, how lonely you felt, how I somehow put this pressure on you, but if we’re such good buddies,” Dean says, and he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know where this is coming from, where this bile is rising up from, “ Why have we never talked about why you did it, Sam?”

“ Dean,”

“You were gonna be a lawyer. You’d worked so goddamn hard, and then you just —- you broke all of it and you — your life was supposed to be easier than mine, Sam, and I —- I did everything I could, damnit, I looked after you, I sent you money, supported you, ran after you and you just,” Dean says, “You threw every goddamn thing back in my face and ruined your life, and that’s —- that’s what I want to fucking talk about.”

Obviously, they’ve gained an audience.

“Dean,” Jessica says, her voice sharp and authoritative, so that Dean couldn’t possibly question that she could control a room of boisterous kids, and of all the people to come into the kitchen to listen to Dean scream at his brother about things that happened half a lifetime ago in the middle of the goddamn Christmas party, he wouldn’t’ve wanted it to be Jess-with-Mary, Castiel and Bobby. Or anyone, really, but he can feel how they're looking at him.“I know Sam has made mistakes, but I will not allow you to talk to my husband like that, in a house where our kids are playing, so stow your baggage or leave.”

“I,” Dean begins, swallowing back the bile, but Sam is just still goddamn deathly-still, and tiny, innocent Robbie Winchester is next door playing Santa with his pseudo-cousin, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore . Jess has Mary in her arms and Robbie could’ve heard him, could’ve heard that, and he ——

“Dean,” Castiel says, his voice sharp, thunder, this firm grip on his arm as he steers, “I’m taking you home.”

The car is very silent for the duration of the drive.

After they've drawn up infront of their home, Cas cuts the engine, sits and breathes.

“Dean,” Castiel says, gaze sharp and piercing from the driver’s seat. “As a relatively jaded medical professional, when I first met you and we discussed your brother I had very limited faith that an individual with such a history of drug abuse and trauma would stay clean, but Sam has been sober for nearly a decade, he is raising two exceptional children and and has an amazing wife, he does not deserve you accusing him of ruining his life,” Castiel says, “He hasn’t. He has a life. He is happy.”

“I know,” Dean says, his voice sounding like it’s coming from the bottom of a well; hollow and far away.

“And if you didn’t want to do this ,” Cas says, voice cracking with emotion, in that way that empties him out and guts him. “If you didn’t want to do this with me, then you —- you needed to tell me months ago, instead of silently self-destructing and refusing to talk about it.” Cas says, and then his voice breaks again, and Dean thinks he might be about to cry.

“Cas.” Dean says, pleading.

“I’m going to bed.” Cas says, pulling determination around him and bursting into movement, so that he’s out the door before Dean’s even had a chance to respond.

Dean follows back up to the house slowly. He’s freaking exhausted, but his string of night shifts starts in less than twenty four hours so he gets himself a can of chemical-tasting energy drink and his textbooks and he studies until he can’t physically stay awake anymore, because he has to do better.

Chapter Text

He gets through his three night shifts without actually killing anyone, and that’s about all he can hope for at this point, and he finishes work at 7am on Christmas Eve, thumbs out a clumsy text to Cas that he’ll be home late and drives to the graveyard where they buried John Winchester.

*

It looks different with frost on the ground.

They buried him in the summer in the wrong place. He’d always wanted to be buried next to Mary Winchester, but there was no damn space and persuading someone else to change their plans was looking expensive and time consuming and Dean was too saturated to care about anything anyway by then. He was operating on numb. It had taken him a whole week to get in contact with Sam to tell him that John was dead and Sam didn’t tell him that something about that conversation shook him him awake, and Dean wouldn’t have believed him anyway, so all he knew was that they had that conversation and then Sam went totally fucking silent on him again. After hounding his local haunts and his friends and even contacting goddamn Ruby, Dean broke into his flat expecting to find him dead on the floor and instead found that he’d locked himself in and cut off all his friends and turned off his phone in some car-crash attempt at cold-turkey on his own. Dean didn’t believe it would last, but he figured he’d rather waste his money on the living than the dead, so he got Sam out of there and paid for rehab , again, and Sam got clean and John Winchester got buried in the wrong graveyard and Dean never came back to visit.

He sits down heavily on the bench, his knees giving way more than anything else, and stares at the gravestone. He must’ve picked it out, but he doesn’t remember anything about that process. Clearly, he was feeling succinct at the time, because his neighbours’ have ‘loving husband’ and ‘cherished wife’ and he went bare and to the point. Husband and father and a string of dates. It’s not much to say about a whole fucking life and, at this point, Dean’s not even sure it’s fair. He doesn’t think he’d do much better.

Someone clears their throat. Dean looks up and startles slightly, because Sam Winchester is looming above him, tall and healthy and glorious, like some bizarre Christmas miracle, because Dean really, really wanted him to be there.

“Hey,” Dean says, his throat rough as he tries to catch up with what’s happening. He’d tried calling twice, but he hung up before it rang out and he didn’t really have a plan of what he was actually going to say, that image of Sam’s shocked look seared across his vision. Sam hadn’t replied, but then Dean hadn’t expected him too and his night shifts hadn’t actually lent themselves to a lot of opportunities to talk. “Did you… stalk me here? Hack my phone?”

“No,” Sam says, smiling slightly as he sits next to him. “No, I come every year, since —— well, since that year you refused to celebrate Christmas.”

Dean blinks.

“Did not know that,” Dean says, looking down at his hands and feeling that big surge of guilt again, because maybe John Winchester deserved better after all.

“Didn’t you just, half an hour ago, finish a twelve hour shift?”

“Uh, yeah,”

“Dean,” Sam says, firm-but-gentle, and now Sam’s pulling out his Dad-voice on him and they’ve all gone full fucking circle. “What’s going on?”

Dean fumbles with his wallet and pulls out the sonogram and passes it to him, because he doesn’t know where else he could even start.

“Oh, wow,” Sam says, carefully taking it from him and holding it up with this easy wonder. “I thought you guys decided you didn’t want to.”

“Cas changed his mind,” Dean says, “And then I changed my mind with him. Honestly, I think I uh —- always wanted to do it, I was just—- I was really scared, but this is Jack. Our tiny alien,” Dean says, roughly rubbing his face with the heel of his hands, “Only apparently I’m still really scared. I’m… sorry, Sammy.”

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Dean blinks, and apparently he’s going to fucking cry. He buries his face in his hands and breathes in sharply, fucking hopelessly, trying to regain some composure.

“Well, It’s pretty helpful context,” Sam says, gently, “But Dean, you know it’s not the same. You were just a kid. You shouldn’t’ve been raising me in the first place,” Sam says, and that does it, and then the sobs are really coming, big racking things that come up his spine and splutter out his chest, and Sam reaches out and grips hold of his shoulder, so tight it’s almost painful, and Dean sways into side and cries like he’s the little brother, and like he gets to be young.

“Didn’t think anyone would pick us,” Dean says, fiercely rubbing at his cheeks, with the cold whipping at his skin. “Not Cas, he’s — he’s great , but I didn’t think anyone would want me, but I guess the doctor nurse thing sounds good if you’ve never actually met one and she’s, Kelly, the birth mom, she’s incredible, Sammy, and she reminds me of you. This powerhouse of an eighteen old who's so damn sure she’s gonna make her life better,” Dean says, and he’s shaking, “She decided this all on her own. She didn’t tell her Mom til she’d gotten all the information, half the paperwork, and she’s going to Columbia, she’s —— so determined, and she thinks we’re gonna give her baby a better life than she can and I just,” Dean blinks, another tear rolling down his face. “I don’t wanna break him, Sammy. He’s so fucking small. He’s not even here yet, and I —- I don’t wanna hold this over you forever, Sam, and I’m not, I’m not tryin’ to, but you —- you broke my heart,” Dean says, “And Dad did, too, but mostly you and I know, I know you’re okay, and you’re safe and you’re happy and you’re fucking incredible, but I can’t do it again. I can’t go through it again.”

“Dean,”

“And after all of it they could still fill in their paperwork and do their review and decide that I’m not good enough,” Dean says, “And take him away again, and then Cas will know that I’m —— that I failed.”

“Firstly,” Sam says, the cold pinching at both of them. “Dean, you’re going to be an amazing Dad. I —- I can’t imagine how scary this whole process is, but you’re right, you both have good, respectable jobs and a solid, stable home, you have nieces and nephews you see all the time and have great relationships with and you’re —- you’re great with kids, Dean, you’re hardwired to care about people. You’re an insatiable caregiver, Dean, I — honestly, I always thought that you’d be a Dad,” Sam says, and that defrosts something in him and breaks something else and Dean doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn’t know. He just doesn’t goddamn know.“Even when we were kids and you had none of those things, none of that stability or support or experience, you did a pretty amazing job looking after me, given circumstances.” Dean lets out a shallow, humourless laugh. “Dean,” Sam says, blinking, “Let’s be honest about this, you’re the only reason I’m alive. If you hadn’t —- I’d’ve… I wouldn’t have made it this far. I wouldn’t have any of this. And Ruby —- she’d be dead somewhere, and she’s alive and helping people because of you. I owe you everything.”

“No,” Dean says, roughly. “Don’t, Sam. I didn’t —- I didn’t mean to make it sound like I’m not proud of you. I don’t —— I am prouder of you than anything.”

“I know,” Sam says, quiet. “I really know that Dean. Have you talked to Cas about all this?”

“He’s so happy,” Dean says, tortured, “he’s so freaking excited, Sam. I’ve never —- I’ve never seen him like this, and I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna ruin it by being a total fuck up. I mean, it’s too late now. He thinks I don’t wanna do it at all, and I…. . ”

“Have you talked to him about it, generally? I don’t mean like, here’s my brother the ex-addict but, some of the other stuff. About you coming to parents' evening and cutting the crusts of my sandwiches, the last lucky charms and … shoplifting Christmas presents,” Sam says, “Because as great as Cas is, he’s not a mind reader, and I think… sometimes it’s just hard to understand all of it. It was so… complicated.”

“ Some of it ,” Dean says, looking out over the damn boneyard, “Been thinking about it a lot, lately. Robbie is the spit of you.”

“Me too,” Sam says, forehead creased as he looks across at him. “You were pretty much his age when mom died,”

“Dad was his age when his Dad walked out on him,” Dean says, balling up his fists. “ Generations of deadbeats.”

“It doesn't have to be like that,”

“I know,” Dean says, straightening up, “Cause you’re —- you’re not —- you’re not messing it up, Sam, you’re doing great.” Dean says, “Robbie, Mary, and I —- obviously, you haven’t ruined your life. You haven’t. I shouldn’t’ve put that on you. Didn’t mean it, just splurging shit, hurting people I love.”

“You know we can talk about it,” Sam says, his voice very level. Deliberate. “I —- couldn’t, right after, and it didn’t seem like you were really in a place to talk about it, anyway, and then —— then you were busy building something with Cas and then Robbie came along, but,” Sam blinks and stretches his fingers out, “I don’t even remember everything I put you through, but I remember enough to know how awful I was and——- it is my biggest regret, Dean, and —- the whole stupid reason I wanted to go to Stanford and become a lawyer was so I could pay you back,” Sam says, blinking, “For every time you put yourself out for me, for trying to shelter me, for working through school and stealing and all the stuff you did that you hid from me, I wanted to make your life better and I —— it wasn’t your fault, Dean. I’m not going to pretend you were perfect, but you were a kid and you were — you were amazing. You did your best,” Sam says, “It wasn’t even really Dad’s fault,” Sam says, and he looks back towards his grave. “I know…. I know he tried. I’ve stopped believing I’m any better than him.”

“You are,” Dean says, voice thick. “You wouldn’t —- you wouldn’t let it get that bad. I know you.”

“It was pretty bad,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t hurting anyone else,” Dean says, “Not like Dad.”

“I was hurting you,” Sam says, and he swallows and looks at him. “We can talk about it, Dean. Probably with someone, some paid professional, not at a Christmas party in front of my kids,”

“I —— I am so fucking sorry, Sam,”

“We can call it quits for one of the times I stole from you,” Sam says, with this dark humour that he shrouds around himself in, sometimes. “One day, I’ll tell them about it. About who I am and —- and all of it, but… later. When they’re older, we can talk about it properly, and… maybe they’ll understand.”

“Didn’t mean to ambush you, man,” Dean says, “That was ———- unacceptable. ”

Sam makes to shrug, almost, then can’t bring himself to.

“I get it,” Sam says, eventually, “And, hey Dean —— congratulations.”

Dean buries his face in his hands again.

“Come on, man, let me —- let me drive you home, you’ve been up for a really long time and you need to talk to Cas, and it is fucking freezing out here.”

“I hate Christmas,” Dean says, pinching his forehead and forcing himself upright, “But I’m okay, I can… I can get myself home.” He says, reaching vaguely for his car keys and pulling out his phone and —- and he is tired, right down to the bone —- and then he blinks down at his phone and the four missed calls from Cas, because obviously he turned his phone on silent when he turned nocturnal form his damned night shifts, “Ah, shit.”

“Dean,” Sam says, clutching a hold of his arm and squeezing it. “I’ll feel a helluva lot better if I get you home. We can take two cars over tomorrow, drop the impala off. Just... let me look after you, for once.”

“Jess is pissed,” Dean says, blinking up at him, the domestic horror of it settling over him again. “You’re still —- she won’t cancel coming, will she? ‘Cause he’s so damned excited about hosting Christmas and I —- I can’t ruin it for him, Sammy, I can’t. This is the first fucking Christmas he’s ever hosted and I’m —— it can’t be me that wrecks it, I——“

“I can handle Jess,” Sam says, with this sureness, and then the phone in his hands starts ringing again. Sam quirks up an eyebrow and then takes it out of his hands m, answering Cas and telling him where they are and that he’s about to drive him home, and Dean just gives in and lets himself be looked after for a minute: let’s Sam shepherd him back to the car and pick the music and drive him home.

“You’re gonna be okay, Dean,” Sam says, squeezing his arm again, tight, and Sam was never tactile. He grew out of sharing-the-bed and goodnight hugs a long time before Dean ever wanted him too, and it feels like some precious blessing to have him so damn close, real and steady on the other side of the car. “ We’re okay.”

“Love you, kid,” Dean says, voice thick.

“Yeah, you too,” Sam says, “You’re —- the best big brother I could ever have.”

“You’re gonna make me goddamn cry again.”

“Tis the damn season,” Sam says, offering shiny-eyed smile, “ Are you going to be okay for tomorrow?”

“Since when has Christmas ever waited for me to be okay?” Dean asks, rough. “I —- yeah, I’ll survive. Thanks, Sammy.”

“Do you have copies of that sonogram?” Sam asks, “Because I’m keeping that picture of my nephew.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, some weak attempt at a smile, “We’ve got copies.”

“Thought Cas said elective sonograms were just a way of getting money out of sucker parents.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, the words slightly congealed in his throat, “We are those suckers.”

“Looks good on you,” Sam says, then he leans over and hugs him from the driver's seat and holds him so tightly Dean almost believes he’s not going to totally fall apart.

Chapter Text

The second he gets through the threshold he gets thoroughly hugged.

“Hey,” Dean says, pulling him close, Cas’ arms under his armpits, pressing them up against each other in their hallway. The palms of his hands are splayed over his back. He’s now only vaguely aware of how damn cold he was and here’s Cas is bleeding warmth back into him, just like always. He doesn’t really know what he was expecting, but it’s such a relief to have his arms around him.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, pitching forward, hands on his cheeks, “You spoke to Sam.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, raw.

“Good,” Cas says.

“ Cas,” Dean begins, “I’m —-”

“Dean,” Cas cuts across him, tilting to his head to follow and heading to the kitchen, and Dean’s too tired and wrung out to argue with him. He just follows. Silently watches him move around the kitchen, pulling out a bagel and some freaking hot chocolate, dumbly transfixed. Cas pauses, gaze catching on him. “You can sit.”

“Okay,” Dean says.

“Dean,” Cas says, “ Last Christmas, you had to report me to the hospital out of concern for patient welfare because I’d refused to speak to you about my mental health. I have previous. So ——- relax.”

“The alternative Wham lyrics,” Dean says, sitting down, then staring at the bagel he’s presented with. “This is for me.”

“Yes. Here,” Cas says, and then he gets a goddamn hot chocolate too.

Dean considers the mug with a lump in his throat.

“Why do we own hot chocolate, Cas?”

“Robbie wanted some on Christmas Day,”

“Okay,” Dean says, and he picks up his bagel and starts to eat. He is hungry under all of it, obviously, and it fills some of the pit in his stomach. Continues to defrost him. “Thanks,” Dean finishes, warily, because this really isn’t how he thought this was going to go. They’ve barely actually seen each other, because Cas finishes work at five on a good day and Dean’s been on seven-sevens, so they’ve had a half hour window crossover bookending whole different parts of their day. They’re used to scheduling their domestics around convenient shift overlaps, but… this feels more serious.

“Dean, I think I’ve let you down here, as your partner.” Cas says, which is obviously so goddamn stupid that Dean’s not sure what his face actually does, but Cas gives him this cracked smile and touches his knee. “When we wrote this off, initially, you told me —— that if you hadn’t lost your father, if your brother hadn’t taken drugs, then it would’ve been a yes. I could’ve reasonably expected that this would be on your mind and it has been unfair of me not to take that into account, to be so swept up in it that we haven’t talked about it and to … dismiss it when you bought it up. I didn’t mean to do that Dean,” Cas says, and he blinks, “I’ve done the Christmas thing you hate. I’ve been crushing you with expectations about how you should feel, instead of allowing the whole spectrum of emotion about it.”

Dean puts down his hot chocolate.

“ I know how happy you are, Cas,” Dean says, “I didn’t —- I didn’t wanna take that from you.”

“You won’t,” Cas says, “Dean, I am very happy. Very much. It can’t be taken away.”

“Even when I’m a total dick,” Dean says, shakily.

Cas tilts his head.

“The anger has been parallel,”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, “ Cas. You know I —- I really wanna do this. So much.”

“I’m sorry too,” Cas says, “You didn’t need me chastising you after you’d yelled at your brother.”

“Deserved it.” Dean says, hoarse.

“It wasn’t constructive,” Cas says, “Please never come home so late after a night shift with no context, when I know that you’re not okay, and we are not okay.”

“You were worried,” Dean says, dumbly, “Is that why I’m getting off so easily? I —- really didn’t mean to scare you, I just, I ——— I wanted to sort out my head, and then I ran into Sam, and I —-“

“I know,” Cas says, standing up. “You need to get some sleep, Dean. We can talk properly later, but you’re not getting off on anything. You’re not on trial, Dean.”

“You’re comin’ to bed?” Dean asks, slightly raw, far too much gratitude spilling into his voice.

“If you knew how terrible you looked you wouldn’t presume I would leave you alone,” Cas says, “I haven’t been sleeping well either.”

“Okay,” Dean says, “Can’t believe you made me a damn hot chocolate like a kid.”

“And now I won’t offer you the mini marshmallows,” Cas says, heading to the door.

“You’re like that Professor in Harry Potter curing sadness with chocolate,” Dean says, following him up the stairs. His legs feel heavy. These big dead-weights, because it was one of those shifts where he never really stopped.

“And apparently I am the dork,” Cas says, as Dean strips off his scrubs and fumbles around for some pyjamas. His skin is still cold, like maybe scrubs aren’t designed for sitting outside in graveyards in goddamn December. “We’ll talk about your dementors when you’ve had some sleep.”

“S’funny because it’s true,” Dean says, slumping onto his side of the bed. “Cas —— you know I…”

“Yes,” Cas says, curling around him, “I do. I love you too, Dean.”

*

He wakes up alone feeling steadier.

He makes himself a coffee before he follows the sound of Doctor Sexy to find Cas curled up on the sofa. He pauses for a moment and takes him in, this beautiful miracle of a man who wants to share his name and raise a baby, and who toasts bagels and buys hot chocolate for his nephew and spends his Christmas Eve watching old episodes of the world’s worst tv show.

“Hey,”

“Hello,” Cas says, looking up at him with his face twisted in concern, dissecting him with his Doctor-gaze. “Have you had enough sleep?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, wrapping his fingers around his cup of coffee and sitting down, making room for himself under the mountain of goddamn cushions Sam bought them last Christmas. “Yeah, four hours now, and I’ll —- I’ll crash out early tonight.”

“We should’ve celebrated on the twenty sixth to give you more time,” Cas says, regretfully.

“But it’s Christmas, man. I’ll —- I’ll be okay,” Dean says, “No guarantees I’ll be free and clear next year, so…. Should make the most of it.”

“I don’t care about Christmas, Dean,” Cas says.

“You wanted to host,” Dean says, “Fulfil your big festive dreams. I want --- I want you to have that. You deserve it.”

“This is what I mean by letting you down,” Cas says, “Dean, I would rather have Christmas on the wrong day, with my husband who has had a chance to sleep. I’m not ignorant, Dean, I knew you weren’t okay, I know how you feel about Christmas and I’ve been making plans and buying turkeys, when the only thing that matters to me is your welfare. I care about you more than any of this, and I —- I haven’t been demonstrating that very effectively.”

“Cas, Sweetheart,” Dean says, “I appreciate the grace here, man, but I’m the one who's been throwing grenades at Christmas parties, and there’s gotta be some accountability for that. You’re fine. ”

“We probably should have cancelled,” Cas says, almost-smiling, “Although I’d admire your attempt at getting us un invited to next year’s .”

“If that shit worked on Jo, would’ve been blacklisted after Dad’s funeral,” Dean says, darkly. “You think next year we won’t be parading Jack round another damn Harvelle holiday party you’re gonna be disappointed.”

“I don’t think I will be disappointed,” Cas says, so damn earnest that it makes that sick-anxious feeling curl up in his stomach again. “Dean,” Cas says, “Please talk to me.”

“You,” Dean begins, then looks down at his hands and swallows, “You keep thinking that I’m changing my mind on you, Cas, and I’m —— god , man, I’m already so wrecked by how much I wanna do right by him, how much I want do it, get it right, but you just…. you said the word son and I just started seeing ghosts everywhere, and I don’t want you to think I’m not in, so I’ve been trying to prove it to you and I…”

“One day, we will master the act of talking to each other rather than communicating through gestures,” Cas says, reaching out and touching his arm.

“Yeah, we really suck at it,” Dean says.

“I was …. I worried I’d pushed you into it,” Cas says, looking at him with those blue eyes, and that makes sense. “That you’d agreed in some well meaning attempt to make me happy,”

“No,” Dean exhales, roughly. “You didn’t, Cas. I, uh, I’ve always wanted it, you just… made me brave enough. Mostly,” Dean says, with a humourless laugh. “Still scared shitless.”

“Talk to me about these ghosts.”

“You know them. You’ve shared a house with them for most of a decade. The fire, and Dad, and Sammy. I just ——“

Dean says, and he thought he’d emptied the tank, but there’s a very real chance he’s gonna cry again. “I’m standing in our nursery thinking about the whole thing burning to the ground. About… about Jack growing up to hate me, and putting me in a grave he’ll never visit cause I ruined his life, about Kelly one day thinkin’… he was the wrong choice to raise my baby,” Dean says, “About watching him slowly kill himself and not know what the hell I’m supposed to do, and you looking at me like I should’ve stopped it, and you hating me too,” Dean says, “That kid Dad hit on the highway. About —— about sitting in that adoption review and them saying, we made a terrible mistake, obviously no one would ever trust you with something as precious as a life, because we are on trial, Cas. We’re on trial and I feel —— I feel like I’m gonna lose, because I’m already fucking it up, Cas, because I —- I can’t make all the damn appointments and I’m upsetting you and —- and Sam, and… it’s imposter syndrome, man, and you’re all gonna find out that I’m … that I’m not good enough.”

Cas takes his hand as seriously as he did the day they finally got round to getting married. Solemn and deliberate.

“You are, Dean,” Cas says. Dean makes this noise at the back of his throat. “Dean, fundamentally, all a child needs is to feel safe and to feel loved. I have never waived in my confidence that you would be an amazing father, because you make people feel safe and loved all the time, Dean,” Cas says, and he’s so fierce and sure.“It’s the very first thing I noticed about you; your commitment to giving your all to the patient in front of you in their distress, in their sickness, your easy charm at making people smile and making them feel seen. I wanted it,” Cas says, as he cradles Dean’s hand in his own. “Your ability to put people at ease and see their pain, because it is an exceptional quality, Dean. I noticed it beyond your work ethic or your looks, or your commitment to festive grumpiness and your worrying interest in Doctor Sexy,” Cas says, “And I appreciate it daily, because you make me feel safe and loved. And I didn’t, Dean. I —- my childhood wasn’t marked by tragedy and trauma, I was safe, I felt safe, but I didn’t feel loved. I didn’t feel accepted. You are the first person to do that, and your family by extension.”

“Sam,” Dean says weakly, and he’s not entirely sure where he's going with it, because he’s always been bad at putting any of this into words.

“I called him while you were asleep,” Cas says, tracking over Dean’s expression for some indication that it’s okay. Dean swallows. “We… talked, briefly. I want to talk about it with you, but…”

“S’okay,” Dean says, nods.

“You couldn’t make him safe, Dean. You were a child. For everything that you poured out and did for him, for all the love you showed him, it wasn’t within your power to make him feel safe. From what I know, he wasn’t. You weren’t.”

Dean feels some old emotion pressing at the back of his eyes again, this old wound that he thought had healed a hundred times over, and his next words scrape out of throat.

“I don’t wanna be my Dad,”

“I don’t want to be my Dad either,” Cas says, forehead creasing. “And, for all I know about your father, Dean, you are nothing like him.”

“He did try, Cas,” Dean says, blinking, “He really —- he loved us. He’d have done anything, he just couldn’t get his shit together. He couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t… he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest he did,” Cas says. “You do have ‘your shit together’, Dean.”

“Yeah, cause I’ve got you,” Dean says, because Cas is his steady island. He’s this rock and, lately, Dean doesn’t know how he functioned before he had his own person. He doesn’t know how he actually survived those shitty Christmasses alone when he didn’t know where Sam or John actually fucking were, when he kept ossilating from expecting them to call and being so sure they were dead somewhere, and torturing himself about why they weren’t there if they weren’t dead, and why it was that when John choose the bottle and Sam choose the needle it still ended up being Dean alone. And, in reality, he only did two completely alone, before Bobby grouched him into the Harvelle-Singer Christmasses, and then he started working shifts, and then Dad was dead and Sam was sober and he met Castiel. “Dad didn’t fuck if all up til after he lost Mom and I —— if something happened, to you, then …”

“Practically,” Cas says, “We have life insurance and savings and you have a job that will always be needed. Emotionally —- you have a support network, Dean, you have your brother and Jessica, you have Bobby and Ellen, friends and … Dean, you are much better at doing things for other people than you are yourself, with Jack in the picture… I have every faith that if something happened to me you would continue to be an excellent father.”

“ Don’t feel like I’m gonna be that,” Dean says, through the lump in his throat.

“I think you may be holding yourself to an unreasonable standard here. I am not asking or expecting you to be a perfect parent, Dean, we are not perfect people. You will miss appointments and run out of patience, and we will both try to communicate in gestures and we won’t be able to protect Jack from every difficult thing in the world and give him pictures perfect Christmasses. He doesn’t need you to have finished your studies, or to be in the best school, or have the best nursery, he just needs you to be you. I don’t know what’s going to happen, Dean, I can’t make you any guarantees that everything will be fine. I am scared too,” Cas says, “My fears are shaped differently, but I am scared Dean,”

“Yeah?” Dean breathes.

“Yes,”

“Okay,” Dean says, and swallows. “Okay.”

“Dean, we can talk about all your individual concerns another time, but ——- when I said it wouldn’t happen, to Jack, I didn’t mean —- of course, people from any background take narcotics. I handled it badly. I can’t guarantee you that Jack will never grow up and take cocaine,” Castiel says, “Or experiment, and make bad choices, and I can’t imagine how terrifying that is Dean, how painful it was with your brother, but… that will be his decision, and I would never blame you for it,” Cas says, “ Sam doesn’t blame you for what happened. If he did, he would never have been able to get clean. He made a choice and he had made a thousand better choices since then, and … I hope that Jack will have different, better choices available to him than your brother did. I hope that we will be able to better protect him from more pain, give him more stability and security, but most of my assurance that it won’t happen is because —- anyone who has met you and has seen the devastation wrought by addiction on your life couldn’t let it happen again, and I assumed that we would talk to him about it, make it very clear how important it is.”

“It’s,” Dean says, his voice thick. “Zero tolerance, Cas. Grounded for life. He can —- he can stay out after curfew and skip school, but he can’t —- he can’t.”

“We’ll have to discuss that skipping school part ,” Cas says, tilting his head. “But, I agree, Dean. We’re a team.”

Dean lets out a shaky breath and rubs his face.

“I am really happy, man,” Dean says, “I know I’m not acting like it, but uh —— I’ve got every single damn thing I’ve ever wanted, it’s just, it doesn't normally work out, and I’m —- scared and everything feels really raw.”

“Understandable,” Cas says, gently. “All I ask is that you talk to me, Dean.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, managing a weak smile.

“And that you look after yourself better,” Cas says. “Eat and sleep and consider your own welfare, instead of pushing through to be some person no one expects you to be.”

“Any other requests?” Dean asks, half-sarcastically.

“Yes,” Cas says, “Next November, we are going to sit down and talk about how to handle Christmas in a way that works for where you’re at, rather than trying to please other people, including me.”

“But your Mom is gonna want to come,”

“I don’t care,” Cas says, “I am accustomed to disappointing my mother, Dean.”

“It’ll be Jack’s first Christmas,”

“He won’t remember it,” Cas says. “We are going to have an infant, Dean. I am going to be reintroduced to sleep deprivation. We’re going to be tired .”

“Oh, you’re gonna be cranky,” Dean says.

“Yes,” Cas agrees, “Our routines will change and this is going to take some time, Dean. As you’ve been trying to explain to people for a decade, how you feel is not actually dictated by an advent calendar. I don’t want us to have our ‘annual domestic’ next year,” Cas says, with his damn air quotes, because he’s so fucking perfect sometimes Dean can’t handle it. “I want us to proactively discuss how to make the holiday season easier on you, because the year after that Jack might remember, and we are not going to pass down our relationship with Christmas to Jack.”

“Well,” Dean says, swallowing. “This is officially the earliest we’ve ever cancelled Christmas.”

“It’s not worth it, Dean,” Cas says.

“You know how much I fucking love you?” Dean says, “You’re the… you’re amazing, man. I’m sorry I’ve been such a damn mess. I just —- I think you’re the best.”

“Likewise,” Cas says.

“ Really wanna raise a baby with you,”

“It’s my honour, Dean, really,” Cas says, “There is nobody else that I would consider doing this with. I know you’re scared, Dean, but I have complete, unshakable faith in you.” Dean swallows, this balloon of joy and relief bubbling up in his chest because … Cas has faith . “And obviously, I love you too.”

Dean sits back on the sofa and breathes.

“Guess we’ve still got tomorrow to get through. I should , uh —- I should call Jess and Bobby and Jo, apologise.”

“No,” Cas says, curling a hand in his shirt and tugging him closer. “It can wait, Dean,”

“Christmas, Cas.”

“ No,” he says, in his fierce doctor voice, “ You are the priority today, Dean. Your family will forgive you just as easily on the twenty sixth.”

“Okay,” Dean says, staring at him for a few moments feeling stupidly warm and cared for. “What does me being the priority involve?”

“It involves you staying here and making out with me on this sofa,” Cas says, “Eating a real meal at a table. Continuing this conversation. Watching a movie and getting an early night.”

“Anything but It’s a Wonderful Life,” Dean says, and then he lets Cas pull him closer.

Chapter Text

Dean only has snatches of memories of the Christmas before everything changed. He remembers waking up filled with that giddy-wonderment and awe about Santa, thundering into his parents' bedrooms and dragging them awake, inconsolable with excitement. John was the one who came downstairs with him to open ‘just the first present’ while Mary had a few more minutes in bed, and he remembers the big-solid weight of his hand-in-his as Dean tugged him all the way down the stairs. Red-and-white wrapping paper and a Teddy Bear that never made it out of the fire. He doesn’t remember the food or any of the rest of the build up, or if they had some tradition of putting something out for Santa, but he remembers John Winchester sitting cross legged next to him by the tree and Mary’s white nightgown and he remembers being so full of joy he didn’t know how it could all fit inside you.

He doesn’t really know if it actually was Christmas day, but in the swirl of memories of before that’s the day they told him he was going to have a little brother. All three of them were sitting on the sofa and his Mom picked up both of their hands and rested them on the swell of her stomach and they felt him kick, and smiled this beautiful, broad smile, and said ‘ that’s your little brother, Dean, wanting to join in .’

The following Christmas, everything was so raw, so fresh, and there were still three of them sitting on the motel room sofa, with baby Sammy lying across both of their laps, and John Winchester had turned off the Christmas movie they’d tried to watch and started to cry silently. He’d taken John’s big hand again and said ‘I love you, Daddy’ and John had sucked in this big, rattling breath, and said ‘you too, Dean’ and Sam had woken up and babbled something and Dean said ‘see, Sammy loves us too, so everything’s going to be alright’ and John stopped crying and they opened the newspaper-wrapped presents together.

*

Christmas is never actually the cosmic bulldozer of an event that he’s expecting it to be. It usually comes around anti-climatic and bittersweet, both better and worse than anticipated, and it’s done before he’s finished wrestling with how he goddamn feels about it and then the train is rolling into the New Year before he’s registered it’s left the station.

He wakes up on the wrong side of an empty bed feeling a lot more mellow than he has for the past month and a half. He’s groggy and slow after attempting to pay back two weeks of sleep debt and a pretty brutal effort to yo-yo back off a night-shift sleeping schedule, and it takes him a little while of staring at the ceiling before he registers that there’s a cup of mostly-warm coffee on his side of the bed, and drinking half a cup until it hits him that it’s Christmas Day. In the end, he reaches for the sonogram still on the bedside table rather than his phone, because Cas is right that his family will forgive him later; that it’s time for their priorities to change again.

And Castiel doesn’t think he’ll be a bad father.

And —— jury’s still out, as far as Dean’s concerned, and there’s still this sloshing anxiety in his gut and he still looks at that tiny face on the sonogram and feels a lot of fear, but this morning it feels easier to see through it. To rationalise. To pack some of it back in a box and actually goddamn breathe, and Jack needs him to do better.

“Merry Christmas, Jack,” Dean tells the empty room, then he sets him down very carefully, then heads downstairs to face Christmas head on.

*

He finds Cas in the kitchen surrounded by every single damn oven dish they own and half a mountain of vegetables, systematically peeling potatoes in his pyjamas with the Christmas music turned down low, looking quietly content. All of this suits him. Sometimes it eats at him that Cas hasn’t always been this fucking-happy, because if anyone deserves it it’s Castiel, but that’s probably not a fair barometer and he should stop putting it on a damn pedestal. They haven’t been unhappy , but life is complicated and full of sickness and vomit and long shifts and grief and goddamn pandemics, and they’re both walking into this with their eyes open to the fact that life is hard and parenting is hard, and they’re a team. He’d been forgetting that part.

“Hey,” Dean says, quiet as not to disturb the piece of the morning. “This is an impressive looking operation.”

“I have a plan,” Cas says, looking up at him and smiling at him with only his eyes, nodding to his scribbled note pad of timings and ingredients.

“Castiel’s first ever Christmas dinner, serious business,” Dean says, picking up the sheet and glancing over it feeling stupidly fond, and how the hell was he ever supposed to deny Cas this? “Merry Christmas, darlin’. Should’ve woken me up to help with meal prep.”

“ You didn’t volunteer to host Christmas,”

“We still keeping at this Christmas guilt?” Dean asks, setting down Cas’ list and looking up at him over the damn vegetables, because Christmas doesn’t actually hault domestics or resolve anything in particular. “Come on, Cas, don’t —— don’t do that, I did mutually volunteer to host Christmas, just… less enthusiastically, and a long time ago. I just wanted you to be happy, man, and I’m not pissed at you for not magically reading my mind, so obviously I can help with your grand plan, and you don’t need to turn yourself into the Christmas Martyr because I’m a basket case.”

“Here,” Cas says, passing him a potato and a vegetable peeler, with this slight tilt of the lips, “Thank you.”

“Awesome,” Dean says, leaning forward to kissing Cas on the rough of his cheek before he picks up his first potato and begins to peel. “Speaking of hosting, where are all the people? Thought we were expecting Sam and everyone at the ass crack of dawn.”

“Ah,” Cas says, a crease forming in his forehead. He adds another freshly peeled potato to the bowl. “We changed the plan slightly yesterday after I spoke to Sam.”

“Jess,” Dean says, something in his chest hardening.

“No,” Cas says, and then he tilts his head slightly in consideration because Cas can’t lie for social niceties, which Dean has always considered to be a pretty great quality. “She is not currently your biggest fan —”

“Yeah, well, someone did that to you, I wouldn’t let them in the damn house.”

“—- But we agreed the new plan so you could get some sleep,” Cas says, taking in his expression.“It will be fine, Dean.”

“She was rightfully pissed.”

“Sam will remind Jess of the context of that outburst.”

“Great,” Dean mutters, roughly peeling a potato, “Happy Christmas, Sam, I got you the chance to have a harrowing conversation with your wife about how you used to be a junkie, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la”

“We also bought him a new toaster.” Cas says. Dean snorts and adds another potato to the bowl. “You should accept the forgiveness you offer other people.” Cas says, almost-casually touching his arm, “But you see, waking you up to help you cook would somewhat have defeated the purpose of letting you sleep.”

“Not the first time I’ve shifted from days to nights, man,” Dean says.

“Normally it’s dictated by your employer rather than your family,”

“Not for long, eh,” Dean says, offering him a slightly-sarcastic wink and then hip-bumping him, because he’s not sure they’re actually at the point they can joke about it. “I’m okay , Cas. You don’t need to kid glove me.”

“I don’t think prioritising your sleep is ‘kid gloving’ you,” Cas says. “But we can agree to disagree, and you weren’t okay.”

“Just cause you’ve gotten used to sleeping like a normal person. And, okay, yeah, I’m…. I’m still feeling pretty raw,” Dean says “But —- I really appreciated how great you were yesterday. You and Sam. So I’m… fortified. Still scared out of my mind, but feeling better about it. Are we,” Dean says, and then he wets his lips and drinks him in, “Are we okay?” Cas sets down his peeler and turns to face him, head on. “Okay, we’re not. Alright. I deserve that.”

“We are okay,” Cas says, with this groove in his forehead. “I am serious about you talking to me, Dean.”

“I’m serious about that too,” Dean says, mouth slightly dry. “Honestly.”

“I know, but —- I have been reflecting on what you said and I wanted to say one more thing.”

“Kay,”

“If this doesn’t work out,” Cas says, “If Kelly changes her mind, or the adoption review doesn’t not go our way, short of you actively setting out to harm Jack, which I fundamentally do not believe you would do — I will not hold you responsible, Dean. It will not be your fault,” Cas says, and he reaches forward, palm on either side of Dean’s cheeks, “It’s not your responsibility to ensure everything works out, Dean, to protect us against any form of imaginable pain. Sometimes things do not happen the way you want them to and —— I would be very, very sad Dean, but I would not blame you.”

Something tight and complicated in his chest unknots and loosenes and he feels, abruptly, like he’s about to cry again out of fucking nowhere.

“ Promised I’d make you happy.”

“You do,” Cas says, “Daily. And what you actually promised was to commit to me in sickness and health, which you have done. The worst outcome here, Dean, is that this doesn’t work out, and that you think I blame you, and you do something self-destructive and unnecessary and I lose you both. I can’t do that. And I’d … I hope that extends both ways.”

“Yes —— yeah, Cas, I, obviously. Of course,” Dean says, clutching at him, pulling him in closer, “Cas, man, I need you.”

“If they have a problem with me ——“

“ —- anyone would be fucking crazy not to give you a baby,” Dean says. “Not happening.”

“You’re the charming one, Dean. My social skills — ”

“—- you’re perfect,”

“Your family took years to warm up to me,”

“Yeah, ‘cause I held you hostage, kept you to myself, cause after all of it I just needed someone to be only on my side. My stability. Someone who’d let me be selfish and angry for a little while, because I wasn’t ready to be reasonable yet. It wasn’t about you. You weren’t the damn problem.”

“You are not a selfish man, Dean.”

“Is this one of your fears?” Dean asks, stepping back to take him in, “That he, that Jack, won’t like you?”

“I appreciate its petty, in comparison.” Cas says, his gaze set on his vegetables.

“Let’s not play that game,” Dean says, “It's not petty. None of this is petty, but of course he’s gonna love you . Cas.”

“Objectively, I understand that my mother loves me and has loved me and that what she has repeatedly failed to do is communicate it. As an adult, I understand that her —- desire to influence my behaviour is from a desire to protect me, but she is cold and clinical, both of which are things I can be.”

“Yeah, at a hospital attempting boundaries with your patients to avoid getting sued, and maybe with people you don’t know, but not with your son. You wouldn’t give anyone shit for being who they wanted to be,” Dean says, “Never. You know you’re not gonna give a damn if Jack wants to be a doctor or a goddamn artist, or one of those douchebags who makes money taking pictures of themselves eating avocado on toast on Instagram, so you’re not your Mom.”

“I may have some opinions about the latter.”

“The point is, you’re the guy who wrote me a prescription for cuddling and bought freakin’ hot chocolates and mini marshmallows for his nephew and —- fits in appointments with stressed out single moms whose kids are barely sick because you’ve got the world’s biggest heart. Let’s face it, Sunshine, you’re a sap ,” Dean says, “You’re gonna dote on him, and he’s gonna adore you, and I’m not sure which of us here is supposed to be teaching him some freakin’ discipline, because frankly I don’t trust either of us not spoil him.”

“There’s a difference between being spoiled and feeling overwhelmingly loved.”

“Tell it to the jury,” Dean says, “But, yeah, of course, man. If something happens, and it doesn’t work out. Or if it does, and something happens to Jack, it’s you and me Cas. In it together, forever. Non-negotiable. That's exactly what I committed to.”

“Good,” Cas says, with that perfect pink flush, then he looks up at him again through his eyelashes. “Also, happy anniversary Dean.”

“Huh, nine years.”

“ Nine years .” Cas repeats, reaching up to kiss him, briefly, before he picks up his goddamn potatoes again, but nine-goddamn-years is too significant for Dean to let it slide by.

“Can’t believe it’s been nearly a decade since you talked your way into crashing my Christmas plans, which I now know to be a completely premeditated attack. You, making out like it’s all spontaneous, when you’ve been eyeing me up for weeks.”

“Can you blame me?” Cas says, pointedly checking him out in a way that makes it impossible not to be drawn in. “The Christmas part was spontaneous. I saw my moment.”

“Got yourself a thing for nurses, there.” Dean says, nudging him with his hip, “Trying to get in my bed.”

“Your marital bed, Dean. I play for keeps.”

“Looks like it,” Dean says, and Cas beams at him, “Sorry, really derailing Christmas dinner prep, here.”

“It’s fine,” Cas says, brandishing his list with a flourish. “We are ahead of schedule.”

“Wow,”

“Which would not have happened if Sam had come at his original ETA. By the way, they’ve been up since six.”

“Okay, thank you for saving me from that,” Dean says.

“My pleasure,”

“So, what’s the new plan for guests?” Dean asks, tilting his head slightly, gaze tracking over Cas’ skin and drinking him in.

“Gabriel and Bobby will be here in an hour,” Cas says, “And Sam and contingent will be here just after that.”

“An hour,” Dean nods, thoughtfully, “And, uh, how ahead are we with dinner?”

Cas sets down his potato and turns to look at him, with this faux-innocence that Dean doesn’t buy for a goddamn minute. He’s seen the coy act enough times to know when it’s bullshit.

“Why do you ask?” Cas asks, voice arranged into polite indifference.

“Well,” Dean says, stepping close enough that he can feel his body heat radiating from his chest, “ You’ve been great, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Cas repeats, dragging his gaze over Dean’s collar bones, slow and deliberate, before he meets his eyes again.

“But I still feel I’ve got some…, apologising to do, about going quiet on you.”

“I see,” Cas says.

“And that’s an important part of, uh, accepting forgiveness.”

“Yes,” Cas says, amusement pulling at the corner of his mouth, and breaking his act is always part of the damn fun.

“And,” Dean says, dropping a hand to Cas’ hip, “ Nine years is a milestone, really.”

“Hmm, the very traditional nine-year milestone,” he

“And it’s Christmas,” Dean says, “Good cheer, merriment, excetera.”

“It is Christmas,” Cas agrees.

“Cas ?” Dean says, pointedly raising his eyebrows.

“I was wondering how long you’d go on for.”

“Well, don’t wanna ruin your big dinner and sabotage Christmas,” Dean says, “People might get the wrong idea about my feelings about the festivities. So…?”

“We have a forty five minute window,” Cas says, setting down his vegetable peeler and heading for the stairs.

*

Bobby is the first to arrive, about two minutes after Dean’s hastily sent some ‘Merry Christmas’ text messages to the various other parts of his family that he isn’t seeing today as some minimal damage-control that he’ll pick up properly tomorrow, or at some point in the three whole days he’s got before he’s back at work.

“And how are you, prey?” Bobby asks, arching an eyebrow at him as he shrugs off his coat, because apparently they’re just getting straight into it.

“Little better,” Dean says, “Sorry about all the drama, Bobby.”

Bobby snorts.

“You two kissed and made up?”

“Yup,” Dean says.

“Mmhmm,” Bobby says, and eyes him up before electing not to comment. “Well, looks like your boy’s gotten into the Christmas spirit, at least.” Bobby says, nodding at the Christmas tree and the freaking tinsel.

“Oh yeah, Cas has been converted,” Dean says, “Cas, we have a Bobby.” Dean calls in the direction of the kitchen, then drops his voice slightly. “He’s just reached the part about getting stressed over freakin’ stuffing and snapping. Apparently it’s my fault we’re behind on dinner so, uh, I’d recommend staying out there.”

“What did you do?” Bobby asks, assessing him with a flat expression.

Dean runs his fingers through his freshly showered hair and elects not to comment because he’s pretty certain that Bobby doesn’t actually want to know the exact reason they’re running behind.

“Been awhile since we’ve had Christmas together, huh?” Dean says, looking back over at him. They saw him briefly last year, and over some video call the year before, but the years before that he tended to spend Christmas with the Harvelles, or with Rufus. Cas is the one who negotiated him into their Christmas plans which was probably a romantic goodwill gesture that Dean missed in all of it, because Dean definitely doesn’t see enough of Bobby. “You remember that first Christmas we had when… when Dad and Sammy was who knows where, both pissed at each other, and I, uh, I was gonna commit myself to a bottle of the good stuff and a pity party and you showed up and told me family don’t end with blood, son, and then you freaking butchered the world's smallest, saddest turkey, so we got take out,” Dean says. “And we watched a western marathon,”

“Yup, I remember,” Bobby says, eyeing him carefully, “There a reason you’ve been so damn busy reminiscing, lately?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, face breaking out into an actual smile.

Finding out that Kelly picked them felt a lot like those movie-Christmasses; this fucking perfect hallmark moment, with that excitement, the wonder and the magic of it, the dozens of time Dean read back over the email confirmation. Before the fear kicked in and crippled him and stole some of the joy out of his lungs, he was obsessing about Cas holding-a-baby and that moment when they got the definite yes, and he thought about getting to tell Bobby Singer.

“Hold that thought,” He says, stepping back into the kitchen, and taking in Cas and his damned potatoes. He looks to have regained some calm since he snapped at Dean about messing up his timings (which Dean elected not to defend himself on, even though it definitely was not his fault) and has added some extra notes to his list. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Cas says, then looks up at him, “Sorry.”

Dean waves this away and leans on the counter.

“Where did we get to on telling people? I mean, uh, not as a get out of jail free card like with Sam, but just ——- as an update.”

“You want to tell Bobby?”

“You want to tell me what, y’idjits?” Bobby says, because obviously Dean’s whole damn family doesn’t know the meaning of private conversation, and Bobby is fundamentally not scared of a little kitchen drama. Or Cas, actually, which he probably should be.

He suddenly wants to talk about it. He’s felt too tangled up, conflicted and tentative about all of it and actually want to have the conversation. It’s complicated, anyway, because there’s still this chance that it won’t happen, and his fear still feels raw and complicated but —- Bobby.

Dean turns to Cas and raises an eyebrow as a question. Technically, they said they weren’t gonna get ahead of themselves and a lot of this privacy thing has been some attempt to protect themselves, but it’s too late. He’s already way too far in to claim some kind of emotional distance.

“I think that’s a very good idea,” Cas says, all deep and low.

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Cas says, reaching forward to kiss him, briefly but a lot less briefly than normal in front of other people, before he turns to face Bobby. “Merry Christmas Bobby, apologies —- we’re running slightly behind on dinner prep.” Cas says, almost keeping a straight face, but with enough pink-flush that Dean thinks it’s pretty obvious why they’re running late.

“And you have news, apparently,”

“Do you wanna do it?” Dean asks, “I told Sam.”

“No, you should,” Cas says.

“You take Gabriel when he shows up,”

“Okay,”

“Okay,” Dean says, then turns back to Bobby. “Do you want a drink Bobby? It’s Christmas.”

“Alright,” Bobby says, accepting the scotch Dean passes him. He pours one for Cas too, muttering a ‘ relax, Sweetheart’ into his ear before they head back out into the living room. “Well, this is mysterious.”

“It’s good,” Dean says, “Well, probably. There’s still a chance it might not work out but, uh —damn, my wallet isn’t in my jeans. Should’ve done a Jess and put it in your Christmas card. Guess this is why some people plan this part out, instead off the cuffing it.”

“There a point somewhere in all this waffle?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “There is an amazing eighteen year old woman named Kelly who’s thirty one weeks pregnant with a boy, and, uh, everything goes to plan, we’re gonna adopt him. He’s gonna be Jack. Jack Winchester.”

“Damn,” Bobby says, and blinks at him.

“I’m gonna say that to him, when he starts asking about it. Family don’t end with blood, son. Best advice you ever gave me, Bobby,” Dean says, and then Bobby stands up and hugs him, gruff and close.

*

“ Deaaan!!” Robbie yells, running hellbent through the door and hitting Dean’s knees at full force, brandishing some horrific new doll thing like it’s a trophy. Sam appears next, halfway through trying to tell him to ‘ calm down and slow down’, but by then he’s spotted Bobby’s coat and is making some mad dash to grandpa that’s probably unstoppable.

“Mornin’, Sam,”

“Hey,” Sam says, and apparently they’re hugging again which definitely used to be a once-every-blue-moon-thing, Sam clapping his back with enthusiasm before he pulls back. “Merry Christmas, Dean,”

“Jessica, Mary, my best girls,” Dean says, expression wavering slightly. Sam reads some invisible clue to pluck Mary out of her arms, squeezing Dean’s shoulder once more before he follows Robbie in the direction of the noise. “Jess,” Dean says, heart in his throat, “Never again, Jess.”

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Jess says, and her smile is slightly weaker. Tighter.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says.

“Dean —- ah,” Cas says, pausing in their hall, “Hello, Jessica. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Castiel.” Jess says, and she turns back to him, waving a finger in the direction of his chest, with her expression wavering. “It better be never again, Winchester.”

“Pinky promise.”

Jess lets out a shaky laugh and hooks their little fingers together, before she lets go and hugs him and lets go with watery eyes and a look that’s far too understanding for Dean to deal with this exact second.

“Just keep it away from my kids.”

“I know,” Dean says, and they both turn to the loud thump from the next room, the split second of silence, then the distinct sound of Mary beginning to cry through the door.

“That’s my cue,” Jess says, heading into the living room.

“See,” Cas says, reaching forward and squeezing his arm, “It's fine.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, throat dry, “You want kitchen support?”

“I want Gabriel support ,” Cas says, “He’s been grilling me about the adoption process for twenty minutes. Whose idea was inviting him? Dinner is going to be very late.”

“It’s always late,” Dean says, “Come on, I can come help.”

“Mary and Robbie are going to be hungry.”

“They’ll have been eating chocolate Santa and sweets since the crack of dawn,” Dean says, drawing him in for a quick hug in their small moment of quiet. “They’ll be a mutiny about presents a long time before they kick off about food. Gabriel happy?”

“Very,”

“Awesome,” Dean says, then they both head back to the chaos.

*

Dinner is late, but it’s delicious and brilliant. Dean had kinda forgotten that the opportunities for crashing out into a food coma are vastly diminished by having two kids involved. Robbie got bored halfway through food and had been vibrating with impatience for play time for the last fifteen minutes, and the second Cas set down his knife and fork he was dragged out of his seat to play the new bee puzzle game they bought him, while Mary fought hell-for-leather against the concept of a nap, which leaves them all pretty over-full and exhausted and apparently not allowed to rest.

And, apparently, its not just the kids, because the second they’ve finished loading the dishwasher, Sam heads for the stairs.

“I want to see my nephew’s new room,” Sam declares, pushing forward and letting himself in —- entitled asshole —- pausing in the doorway with this look of vague wonderment. “Looks great in here. Love the green.”

“Yeah, I … uh, I picked it out.,”

“Yeah, Cas was expressing concern over your commitment to DIY and studying over sleep last time we spoke. Without the context,” Sam says, turning to raise an eyebrow at him, question unvoiced but obvious.

“ Yes, we talked it out, Sam. We’re good, I slept, everyone is fulfilling their festive fantasies.”

“Good,” Sam says, “Because, I think this is great, Dean. I love this for you.”

“Really,” Dean deadpans. The truth is, he is glad that they’re talking about this again, in a slightly less emotionally overloaded conversation. He cares about Sam’s opinion more than he can voice.

“ Really,” Sam says, “And here’s the rest of your Christmas present.”

Dean turns the business card over in his hand and stares at it.

“ Couples counselling,” Dean reads, “Firstly, back out of my goddamn marriage. Secondly, there’s nothing wrong with my marriage.” Sam’s expression twitches, slightly. “Nothing we can’t sort out without outside fucking influence.”

“No, I know, that’s not what I meant,” Sam says, “I meant for us.”

“Me and you,” Dean says, “At couples therapy.”

“She does familial relationships too, Dean,” Sam says, “And she specialises in the impact of addiction on relationships. Look, Jess and I spoke to her when we were first pregnant with Robbie. I mean, you remember, with Ruby…”

“Oh yeah,” Dean says, “Another fun Christmas for the archives.”

“It was a reality check. It’s one thing dating an ex-addict, but having a baby with one…. She started struggling with my history so… we talked to her and, I don’t know, Dean. It helped us.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Parenting panic,” Sam says, shrugging his big shoulders and looking down at his hands. “Dean, you’re my best friend and my big brother, and I’m so lucky to have you in my life, and if the cost of that is once every five years you yell at me about the past, then that’s definitely worth it, but…. There’s stuff we don’t talk about, and if it’s costing you, then… I think this, being a Dad, could be really healing for you,” Sam says, and he pauses at Robbie’s pictures on the wall. He reaches forward and runs a thumb over the edge of it. “We don’t have any of this stuff from when we were kids.”

“He kept more of it than I thought,” Dean says, “Went through some of his lockups while you were in rehab and, uh, we have some of it. Got your Mathletes trophy in a box in the attic. Your school reports. He was really proud of you, Sam.”

“You never told me you did that,” Sam says, looking at him with the big Bambi eyes that have been ruining Dean’s life for decades. “Went through all of his things on your own. Kept it.”

“I don’t wanna,” Dean begins, then he blinks, looks back at the door. Sam shut it after he let them both in. “I didn’t wanna knock you off the wagon, Sammy. I didn’t wanna bring something up that —- that made you wanna get high to block it all out again. Not like I could’ve asked you to sit there and go through it all, then.”

“No, I get that,” Sam says, “I understand, Dean, but you know that’s…. That’s not going to happen, now. I know that I’ve burnt through your trust a thousand times. I know that it’s… a lot, to ask you to put faith in me, but you don’t have to keep protecting me. I’m not that person anymore.It’s not an option.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, roughly rubbing his face, “I know, Sam, I do, and I do trust you.”

“I owe you a lot.”

“Don’t think I won’t forget it when we need a babysitter,” Dean says, “If Christmas is couples counselling, what are going getting me for my birthday?” Dean asks, holding up the damn business card.

“You’ll go for it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Dean says, glancing at the door as there’s a knock on the door. “Yep?”

“This is where you boys are,” Bobby says, emerging with three measures of scotch. He looks around the room. “So, this is your Jack’s room?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Obviously we’re still a little short of furniture.”

“We kept Mary’s crib,” Sam says, resuming his walk around the perimeter room, “I’ll dig it out for you.”

“You kept it, huh? Thinking about number three, Sam?”

“No way,” Sam says, “I can live without being outnumbered. Two is plenty. No, I just… had a feeling,” Sam says, side eyeing him with a slight smile. Dean takes a sip of his scotch and looks at Robbie’s drawing, and his incredible little brother, and Bobby Singer.

“Still sure I’m gonna fuck it up,” Dean mutters.

“ That fear stopped me from going for it with my Karen,” Bobby says, “Damned stupid. Course, sometimes life throws you a bone.”

“Yeah, how many grandchildren is it now, Bobby?” Sam asks, reaching out and clapping his arm.

“Enough to bankrupt me every damn Christmas,” Bobby grumbles.

“Hello,” Cas says, from the doorway, “Dean, your presence is requested for teddy hospital. Apparently, you’re the best at it.”

“See, you’re a shoe-in,” Sam says, “If I can do it, you’ll be amazing.”

Fifteen minutes into playing teddy hospital, he gets struck by the gratitude of all of it again. Of how incredible it is that the tiny little boy who cried into his shirt turned into an angry young man who lied and stole, who turned into a father of two amazing, happy kids. He watches Robbie narrate the story of Max-the-Rabbit’s hurty knee with this overwhelming sense of love and confidence that Robert Winchester is going to be fine.

“Hey kid,” Dean says, and Robbie looks at him with the big, serious eyes, “You know you’ve got the best Dad ever and that he loves you a lot.”

“Yes,” Robbie says, impatiently, very seriously, “I know.”

“Alright, as long as you know,” Dean says, and takes the rabbit as instructed, and fits him with a pretend catheter.

*

The rest of Christmas dwindles away in a string of new toys and probably too-much-whiskey, and Robbie’s hot chocolate and Cas laughing, all crinkled and beautiful, at the ‘childhood’ anecdotes Bobby starts sharing in some scotch-inspired sentimentality. They play half a game of kids monopoly before Robbie declares it’s too boring and they make it all the way till Sam and Jess’ exit time before end kind of melt down, which turns out to be a dual, synchronised meltdown about not wanting Christmas to end which has Mary grumpy and Robbie inconsolable until Jess manages to talk him down from the ledge and into his car seat, and Dean is exhausted and almost-content.

“Cas,” Dean says, lying awake on the other side of the bed, because he’s still got way too many thoughts in his head to sleep even though he really should, “What do you think about baby-led weaning?”

“Is this what keeps you up at night?” Cas asks, sounding warm and fond. They’ve got Bobby staying in their spare room for the night and a significant amount of chaos to clean up in the morning that none of them could face.

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Among other things.”

“Come here, then,” Cas says, and Dean rolls into his space. He gets a hand in his hair and one splayed over his back for his efforts, and a brilliant opportunity to melt into Cas’ side. “I think choices that work for the parents are usually as beneficial as splitting hairs about nutrition, so I’m relatively neutral. I appreciate the philosophy.”

“Incorporating them into meal times,”

“Yes,”

“But how often do we have a family meal time?” Dean asks.

“More than some, less than others,” Cas says, brushing his fingers through his hair. “We’ll make it work, and if it doesn’t, then we’ll change something.” Cas says, and it sounds so goddamn simple when he says it like that. Dean lets that wash over him for a little while.

“D’you have a good day?” Dean asks, shifting so he can take in his expression.

“Yes,”

“Hosting Christmas everything you dreamed of?”

Cas half-smiles.

“I am very tried and very happy,” Cas says, in that low, gravelly version of his voice. Dean shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to transplant a baby into this Christmas. Jack will be well into solid food, by then, however they do it. Crawling, maybe. Attempting to string together those first, stuttering words. Mary will have shot past the toddler stage, well into childhood, and if Robbie’s anything like Sam he’s going to get more stubborn and opinionated and sensitive and brilliant by the year. Sometimes, it's hard to hold onto the argument that he hates something that involves getting to spend a day with so many people that he cares about, when it feels like the pressure's been taken out of it.

“I don’t think I will wanna cancel Christmas next year, Cas,” Dean says, curling closer to him under the covers; this freaking perfect man that somehow manages to so easily represent stability and safety and something solid to cling onto, when none of it ever felt stable enough to count on. Nine years is a long time. He's counting on forever. “Today was… okay, in the end. Parts of it were good. Certain parts were great.”

“ We can talk about it next year, Dean,” Cas says, reaching forward to kiss his forehead with this perfect smile on his face. Dean lies there for a while.

“Do you know if you can fit a car seat in the impala?”

“Go to sleep, Dean,” Cas says, pointedly, and tugs him closer.