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Dean wasn't sure how it happened, but one day it was just him and Sam in the old Men of Letters bunker, and then suddenly there were enough people to fill up one entire side of the oversized table in main room.
First was Kevin, of course. The poor kid had nowhere else to go. He still spent most of his time holed up in the room that he'd claimed, translating and doing other teenage prophet things. Every now and then, he would wander into the main room, hover around for a bit, sigh, and retreat back with some greasy and unhealthy food in hand. Dean dismissed it as a teenage slash having your entire life turned upside down thing. The kid had been on a fast track to Harvard or Yale or whatever, and now he was stuck in a (arguably very nice) hole in the ground with two virtual strangers. He was allowed to be moody.
Next was Charlie who showed up at their door one cold night, all grins and hugs. Don't get him wrong, it was awesome that she'd decided to drop by. The only thing was that she refused to explain why. Instead, she made cryptic pop culture references, and said that she was here to make sure that they took some down time. She was oddly insistent about that.
Dean didn't look too deeply into that though, largely due to the fact that Charlie somehow managed to convince Cas, who was all gung ho about going back to the angels and dealing with the aftermath of everything that happened, to actually stay. Dean had no idea how, and privately was a bit jealous of easily she got him to stop talking about leaving when he couldn't, but whatever. At least Cas was here for the foreseeable future.
The guy attracted bad luck like a moth. It was safer for him at the bunker, where he and Sam could watch his back.
So, that meant there was actually a full house in the bunker for once. Him, Sam, Cas, Kevin, and Charlie.
Thinking back, all of this would have made a lot more sense if Dean had just looked at a calendar.
But he hadn't.
So when he came downstairs one morning, in his nice, comfy robe, with his favorite coffee mug in hand, to find a giant, wilting, tree in what looked to be the aftermath of some kind of tinsel and glitter bomb , he stopped.
And stared.
“What the-?”
It seriously looked like a holiday retailer had decided to dump their entire Christmas stock into this room. There was tinsel everywhere. And wreaths, and little paper snowmen, all over the walls. Someone had even put an ugly bright red and lime green tablecloth with candy canes over the table.
And the tree.
The tree was so sad, and pathetic looking, with its random patches of missing needles. It was so tall that even Sam would have to reach to touch the top, but it was drooping heavily due to the weight of all the ornaments, tinsel, stars, snowman, light, and who knows what other crap that had been dumped onto the side that Dean could see.
The biggest surprise though, was that Cas was there too, brow furrowed as he carefully threaded an ornament next to the ridiculously large tree. He had fake brown antlers attached to his head and there was a large box at his feet. Dean had no trouble guessing how was responsible for the mess of decorations on the tree.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Cas looked up at that, placing all of the intensity that had previously been aimed at the ornament onto Dean.
“Good morning Dean.”
He stepped closer, carefully avoiding looking at Cas in those antlers by focusing on the tree. Shit that thing was ugly. And Cas looked surprisingly cute in his choice of headgear. Wait, no, don't think of that.
“Yeah, morning, Cas. What the hell are you doing?” And wearing.
Charlie poked her head out from around the tree before Cas could reply.
“Morning sleepyhead!” She said, shaking her head and grinning. Pine needles clattered onto the floor from her hair. Dean suppressed a wince. He'd only just cleaned in here yesterday.
“What do you think?” Charlie continued, oblivious to the mess she was making. Is this thing great or what?”
“This tree is amazing,” said Kevin said appearing from the other side of said tree. He was wearing a Santa cap, and a ton of pine needles everywhere. He was also grinning madly.
Dean was still stuck on the fact that there was a freaking tree in his living and that it was making a huge mess, and why the hell was there a tree in here?
“Why the hell is there a tree in here?”
Charlie frowned.“Wait. Did you seriously forget?”
Dean winced as Kevin threw what he assumed was supposed to be fake snow at the tree and it scattered all over the floor. “Forget what?”
“Christmas!” Charlie exclaimed as Sam walked into the room.
“Oh hey,” Sam stopped and surveyed the tree. “Wow. That is one big tree. Isn’t that next week?”
Charlie gave him an utterly horrified look. “ Next week ?”
“You see what I have to put up with?” Kevin muttered as he continued to adjust every ornament that Cas placed on the tree.
“It’s today,” Cas said, placing the next ornament higher, out of Kevin’s reach. “Merry Christmas, Sam, Dean.”
“We are going to have an awesome Christmas,” Charlie said, tossing a red, fluffy hat to Sam.“Right, guys?”
“Right.” Sam grinned and put on the hat. It was too small for him and it looked ridiculous, but Sam clearly didn’t care.
Kevin nodded from where he was adjusting some ornaments. “Yay.” He said in an utterly unenthusiastic voice.
Cas placed another ornament onto the tree and turned expectantly to Dean.
Dean was outnumbered.
“Right,” he said raising the mug to his mouth before he remembered that it was empty. He pretended to take a sip anyway. “I'm going to go look up, uh, hunter things. Have fun with your,” he nodded to the mess. “interior decorating.”
He turned around and headed back to his room. It was only after he left the room that he remembered that he had not gotten his coffee. Fuck. It was way too early for this shit.
*~~~*
Dean managed to avoid most of the Christmas junk by hiding out in his room, with his headphones on. He eventually left though, to get a beer and some food. And that's where Sam cornered him.
“Dude, where have you been all day?” He said, grabbing an apple and sitting down at the kitchen table. “We could have used your help decorating the tree.”
Dean shrugged, not looking up from where he was creating the perfect sandwich. One of Dean's favorite parts of the Bunker was the kitchen. Fast food was nothing compared to a meal you assembled yourself.
“Cas missed you.”
The bottle jerked and ketchup splattered onto the counter. Dean glared at him. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
Sam shrugged, smirking. “Fine, don't believe me then. Come see for yourself.”
Dean turned back to his sandwich.
“C'mon,” Sam wheedled. “Where's your Christmas spirit, Dean?”
“The only spirit I'm interested in is the one right here.” Dean said, nodding towards the beer next to his plate.
Sam made a face. “Really, Dean? It's not even noon yet.”
Dean picked up the can and took a sip. “Yeah, well, it's happy hour somewhere in the world.”
Sam sighed as he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Well, I'm going back in there and helping out with the decorations. You can stay here and be a Grinch, if that's what you really want.”
Dean ignored him and instead took another sip. This one longer than the first.
He wasn't being a Grinch. He just wasn't into the whole holiday scene. The others could do it if they wanted. It was probably good for Kevin, the kid already looked more livelier this morning than Dean had seen him in weeks. And this was clearly what Charlie had been planning on doing this whole time. Even Cas was into it.
But whatever. Dean wasn't getting involved.
No way, no how.
Dean was so focused on eating his sandwich and on mentally listing all the reasons why he wasn't a grinch that he wasn't at all suspicious about how easily Sam had given up. He really should have realized that his brother was not going to get off his case that easily.
About ten minutes after Sam left, just as Dean finished eating, Cas strolled into the room, carrying an oversized box. He marched right up to Dean and dumped the box onto the table.
Dean straightened up from the slouch that he'd fallen into and was still gathering his wits, when Cas dropped into to the seat next to him.
“You're going to help me with this.” He declared, opening the box and pulling out what looked like the world's biggest tangled ball of fairy lights.
“Where the did you even get that?” Dean asked, unable to resist poking the ball. He was pretty sure that this wasn’t from some room in the bunker, and it sure as hell didn’t belong to him or Sam.
“Charlie.” Cas replied, pushing the ball towards Dean. “You start on that side, and I'll do this one.”
Dean couldn’t say no to Cas. He cautiously picked up his end of the wire and gave it a tug. Nothing happened. It was seriously knotted. This was going to take a while.
They worked in semi-awkward silence for a while. Dean waited for Cas to say something, to try and get him to go help decorate the tree. That was clearly what he was here for.
“So” Dean said, drawing out the word as he tried to think of something to break the silence. Cas seemed perfectly ok to just quietly keep working, but Dean was way too aware of how close Cas was, and how good he smelled (like pine and cinnamon, probably from the tree) and he desperately needed a distraction.“Why are you so into this? I don't think was that kind of thing up your alley.”
“This is my first Christmas as a human.” Cas said.
Fuck. That's true, wasn't it?
Aside from his occasional talk of finding the angels, Cas seemed to be totally ok with the fact that he was now human. He had adjusted really well, and seemed perfectly content. That didn’t mean that Dean was okay with it. He hadn’t admitted it out loud to anyone, but honestly felt responsible for Cas’s fall. Cas hadn’t ever said anything about it, but Dean knew that he had played a major role in the events that lead to the angel’s fall.
“Cas,” Dean started to say. He made the mistake of looking over at Cas and the words died in his throat.
Cas stared back, all huge blue eyes and messy bed head, and ugly Christmas sweater.
“Yes Dean?” he said, his voice low and his gaze intent.
Fuck.
*~~~*
Everyone looked up when they walked into the room. Dean had a feeling that they'd been waiting for him. Fuck that was all planned wasn't it? He turned to Cas who stared back with a slight grin. The bastard had the guts to not even look sorry about this.
He took a deep breath and then let it out.
“Okay.” Dean said, bracing himself. “Let's do this.”
“Great!” Charlie said, leaping to her feet and pulling out her phone. “Now that everyone's on board, we can really get started. I brought everything we need with me, so we don't need to worry about sending someone to brave the supermarket.”
“Is that a list?” Dean asked, incredulously as Cas left his side to go see.
“Of course.” Charlie replied, typing away much faster than Dean ever could. “This is our first Christmas together. It has to be perfect.”
“I'm not giving any of you presents.” Kevin said, as he headed over to Charlie as well, obviously curious.
Charlie scoffed. “Presents are just one small part of Christmas, little man. It's everything leading up to the presents that's the good part.”
“If you say so,” Kevin said dubiously.
Sam grinned from where he was still working on setting the tinsel onto the tree. “I'm in.”
He smirked at Dean. “You?”
Fuck. He should back out right now. There was still time, right? He could claim there was a hunt and avoid the Bunker for a few days.
He glanced over at Castiel who was peering over Charlie's shoulder and pointing at something on the screen.
He could totally leave until Christmas was over. Right?
*~~~*
He didn't leave.
*~~~*
Making cookies was the first thing on Charlie's list. That wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't for the fact that half of them had no freaking clue what they were doing.
“Dude, did you measure that?” Dean said, a second too late.
Sam dumped what looked like half the bag of flour into the wet mixture and paused.
“What?” he said, blankly.
“You need to measure that! Don’t just dump it in!” Dean grabbed the bowl away from and inspected it, but it was too late. There was way too much flour in it.
“It’s fine,” Sam said, unconvincingly. “The recipe wanted six cups, that's around six. Probably.”
“You, don’t touch anything.” Dean grabbed another bowl, hoping to salvage at least some of the mixture. “
He turned out just in time to see Kevin whisk his bowl too vigorously and splatter at least half of it onto the floor. It narrowly missed Cas who was carefully cracking open an entire carton's worth of eggs into his bowl, judging by the amount of shells on the counter.
Right. “Everybody, out!”
“Well, that was fun,” Charlie said sheepishly, as the others slowly trailed out the room.
Dean looked at the mess on the counter, floor, and somehow even the ceiling and glared at her.
*~~~*
The Christmas crackers were a slightly better idea.
The prizes were shit and the jokes sucked, but at least it’s didn’t result in a huge mess and a ruined kitchen. Plus, it was kinda fun.
Until they realized that Kevin, the sneaky cheat, had somehow rigged the system to ensure that he always won.
*~~~*
Next was speed Secret Santa.
Since it was already Christmas, everyone was given a one hour time limit to find a present for their recipient.
Charlie had everyone pick a name from an old top hat that she appropriated in the name of Christmas.
Dean got Cas’s name.
There wasn’t much choice of things to give a former angel. Dean ended up spending most of the hour switching between prospective gifts and pretending that he wasn’t stressing out over finding the perfect gift.
He ended up giving Cas a sort of Robin Hood-esque hat that he’d found and claimed during their earlier days in the bunker. It was in pretty good shape, considering, and, in Dean’s opinion, seriously cool.
Cas immediately put it on in place of the antlers, and spent the rest of the night with it on his head.
It turned out that Cas had gotten his name in the draw. He gave Dean a scarf.
It was warm and fluffy and nothing like the stuff he normally wore. But it was soft, and the bunker was kinda cold, so Dean put in on, and kept in on for the rest of the night.
*~~~*
“Thanks.” Cas said, from Dean's right, later that night. They were seated at the main hall table, by the newly placed Christmas tree. All gifts had been exchanged, and everyone was just relaxing.
“What?” Dean asked, not really paying attention. The scarf was really comfy, and he was wondering how long he could wear it before someone said something.
“I know you didn’t want to celebrate,” Cas said.
Dean looked up, surprised.
“But you did anyway, for the rest of us. Thank you Dean.”
Dean focused on his mug, avoiding Cas’s gaze. “It's just...”
“The holiday’s remind you of your mother.”
Usually, around Christmas time, There was a hunt or something else to occupy his attention. And they'd always been in a motel, or, rarely at Bobby's. Back when he was with Lisa, he’d made up a hunt and left around that time.
This was the first Christmas in a long while where Dean was in any place that resembled an actual home.
But this, this actually wasn't that bad.
“You know, I should probably be thanking you, Cas.”
Cas frowned, and turned towards him. “Why?”
“For getting me to, and yeah. This wasn't all that bad.” He looked straight at Cas. “Thanks.”
“Dean.” Cas whispered, his blue eyes focused on him.
Was it Dean's imagination, or was Cas closer than he was before?
He swallowed.“Yeah?”
“We're under mistletoe.”
Dean didn't bother to look up. He couldn't even if he wasn’t to. Not with Cas looking at him like
that. Like Dean was the only thing Cas cared about right now. Like they were the only ones in the room. Like he wanted Dean to...
Dean leaned forward the two inches of distance separating them and kissed him.
He ignored the cheers and groans from the other occupants of the room and focused all on Cas and his chapped, but surprisingly soft lips, because holy shit . He was kissing Cas.
Cas seemed more than content to ignore the others too. He wrapped an arm around Dean’s shoulder and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.
They kept kissing like that, under the mistletoe, on the sofa, in a festively decorated room, surrounded by friends and family until they were pelted with crumpled up wrapping paper.