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They heard the first song on a late Sunday afternoon.
Dean was busy frying up some grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner because he’s the king of grilled-cheese. Fucking perfected these when he was growing up. Bobby was in the study, playing FBI head-bossman over the phone, and Sam was hovering like an overgrown mother-hen around the kitchen table watching the kids.
Like the frikken amazing person that he was, Bobby had brought back a tower of crayons from his latest foray into the rest of the world (good sweet monkey Jesus did Dean miss hunting). No, really. It said it right there on the lid: Telescoping 150 Crayon Tower. Some of them were already used and it was missing a couple, but the kids didn’t seem to mind and it kept them occupied.
But Gabriel and Balthazar had to be watched constantly, otherwise they would end up with crayon fucking everywhere. And not just drawings on surfaces where drawings don’t belong. Oh hell no. They would end up with crayons in places crayons do not belong. A prime example: getting as many as can fit between Cas’s feathers without him noticing.
When those first few notes played, Dean actually dropped the spatula and he might as well have flown for how quick he got across the kitchen. He fumbled with the buttons until the music snapped off mid-lyric. But the damage was already done. The sudden, eerie silence made his shoulders stiffen and he turned around very, very slowly.
The angels were staring with wide, round eyes and it scared the piss out of him. Three sets of wings fluffed and spread and started to twitch. Dean nearly abandoned ship right then and there, limbs twitching in an aborted flight over fight decision because Gabe and Balthazar were full on grinning. It was kind of impressive that Sam – with his gigantor body - could look as small and as terrified as he currently did.
“Soooo, you guys want any of the sandwiches?” It’s a piss-poor distraction attempt, considering they don’t really eat, but Dean was desperate.
He really shouldn’t have held out any kind of hope that nothing would happen. Dean’s stomach dropped through the floor and Sam visibly winced when Gabriel tilted his head back and starting singing as loud as his little lungs could allow.
“JOOOOOY TO THE WOOOORLD –”
Balthazar stood up on his chair and spread his arms. “THE LOOOOORD HAS COOOOOME!”
Cas looked between the both of them. It didn’t seem like he knew what was going on or what should come next, but his wings were twitching and he looked just as excited as they did. It must be a kid thing, being pumped up about Christmas. Like it was ingrained into their very bones or something. It sure as hell wasn’t an angel thing. Dean still shudders whenever he accidentally remembers the incredibly disapproving, long winded, and painfully boring lecture about pagans and Christianity that Cas tried to kill them with during his first Christmas on Earth.
Gabriel laughed and jumped up onto the table, scattering crayons and papers. He kept right on singing and his wings stretched out and fluffed up and suddenly it started to fucking rain candy-canes. The smoke alarm chose that moment to go off, reminding everyone of the two sandwiches sizzling to a level of intensely crispy in the pan on the stove. Dean and Sam swore at the same time and Bobby’s shouts were drowned out by the shrill shriek of the alarm.
And that was the beginning of their descent into madness.
By the end of the week, at the kid’s insistence (and they raised hell and brought down heaven if anyone tried to say ‘no’), Bobby’s house was dressed to the nines with decorations. There were no less than seven wreaths and Dean had lost count, but he’s pretty sure there were a couple hundred figurines (ranging from Santa and his reindeer, to the bouncing baby Jesus, to some hideously tacky angels that only served to make Cas crinkle his nose and the other two to nearly crack a rib laughing) decorating every surface possible. No table edge, door frame, or book case had escaped being lined with garlands of every sparkly colour possible. And they could barely see through the all the window-stickers covering the glass.
He’d nearly killed himself on four different occasions trying to hang Christmas lights on the house. There were so many that the flood lights Bobby had to keep the scrap yard lit were almost unnecessary. And the Christmas tree alone was such a fire-hazard that it would send Smokey the Bear into convulsions.
He didn’t even want to think about how many times he’d had to duck through a door at full speed for fear of getting trapped under a sudden sprig of mistletoe. Once was one time too many for Dean to get caught while carrying Cas. Apparently refusing to follow the tradition, pulling the decoration down, and giving it a rigorous salt and burn wa considered ‘excessive’ and got him the stink-eye from everyone (Bobby and Sam included) and the disappointed pout from Cas was so far beyond ‘not thinking about it’ that Dean had all but stricken it from his memory.
And Dean had no idea where the decorations were even coming from. They just kept showing up in unmarked boxes on the front porch and every time they were brought in, Gabriel or Balthazar would have smug little smirks.
Once, Dean had walked into the bathroom and ended up cursing loudly and saying something along the lines of “That’s just fuckin’ creepy.” because the toilet seat had a Santa cover and the rug on the floor was shaped like his body. He ended up having to take a piss in Santa’s face and as much as he didn’t want to celebrate Christmas, that was still just frikken wrong.
Then there was that Wednesday where he, Sam and Bobby had to assist in the building and decorating of gingerbread houses because the angels had insisted (and by ‘insisted’, he means ‘spent three hours throwing the worst possible tantrums possible – Cas included’) that as children they should get to experience every Christmas children’s tradition.
Of course, by mid-December this meant that they had been shot down no less than twenty-eight times in their begging to go see Santa.
“But Dean –”
“Wings, Cas. You three have wings.” Dean tugged the blanket higher and hunched his shoulders to the tiny hands tugging at the back of his t-shirt.
Not to be deterred, Cas leaned heavily over his shoulder. “We can hide them under sweaters, or our jackets!”
He rolled onto his stomach to avoid those wide, pleading blue eyes that he’d found were nearly impossible to say ‘no’ to if he looked at them directly. “They make you take off your jackets during the picture so you look nice and pretty.”
“We don’t have to get a picture taken. We could just sit on his lap and tell him what we want for Christmas and then we can go.” A weight settled heavily on his back and Dean just knew Cas had completely abandoned his side of the bed and was actually sitting on him now.
Sometimes he really regretted ever agreeing to let Cas sleep with him. Personal space boundaries had essentially ceased to exist now that Cas was a kid. Dean briefly entertained the idea of smothering himself with his own pillow.
“What the hell do you need to see Santa for? You guys don’t even want any gifts. And you know he isn’t real.”
“It’s the thought that counts, Dean.” Cas kept tugging at his shirt. “We could ask for Hell to be sealed, or for us to find God, or for world peace, or for this spell to be broken. Please, Dean? Please!”
Dean pushed up and Cas fell over in a tumble of flailing wings and limbs. “Cas. We’ve been over this. We can’t take you guys out in public because you have wings. Not to mention what giant douchenozzles Gabriel and Balthazar are, and we can’t risk either of them pulling some bullshit that outs you guys to the world.”
The pout was out and in full effect, watering eyes and all, by the time Cas managed to sit up. “But –”
“No ‘buts’. It’s risky enough that we go to an abandoned park, let alone a packed mall. There’s so much that could go wrong that I get nauseated just thinking about it. I’m sorry, Cas, but it’s not an option.” And it was a dick move, but Dean leaned over and turned off the light next to the bed. “Goodnight.”
The dark did a fantastic job of keeping him from being able to see the tears, but Dean cursed how clearly he could hear the quiet little sniffles. He swore under his breath and reached out, groping across the covers until he found Cas’s arm and could tug him down. Cas didn’t struggle, but he certainly didn’t help, while Dean tried to maneuver the loose-limbed brat under the blankets and up against his chest.
He made a face when a wet cheek pressed into his neck. Cas sniffled again and when he spoke it was muffled into the fabric of his shirt. “Did you get to see Santa when you were a child?”
“Well, yeah. Mom took me.”
“And did you take Sam?”
Dean huffed and tried to ignore the way Cas’s fingers were twisting into the front of his shirt. He was pretty sure he’d figured out where this conversation was heading and he really wasn’t looking forward to it. “O’Course I did. I tried giving Sammy the most normal childhood I could even with our shit life on the road.”
Cas was quiet for longer than Dean would have liked. He thought maybe the tyke had fallen asleep, but Cas sniffled again. “Angels are born fully formed with all the knowledge we’ll ever need. We never got to have a childhood. Why aren’t we… Why aren’t we allowed to experience a human childhood too?”
He sighed, running his fingers through Cas’s hair in soothing circles. “You know I would if I could, but it’s too risky. If you guys got found out, who knows what shit could hit the fan and I’m not gonna take that chance.”
Dean didn’t get an answer. Cas only shook his head, sniffled more, and tucked up against him. It wasn’t long before the sniffles turned into quiet snores and Dean was left alone, staring at the wall and trying to think of some way around the glaring problem. This wasn’t the first night that Cas had gone to sleep sniffling and it was driving Dean crazy. He fell asleep still thinking.
x
“No.”
“C’mon, Bobby. Think of it as a learning experience!” Dean leaned over the desk, keeping his voice to a quiet whisper. Sam was bundling up the kids so they could go build a snowman.
“Learning experience for what?” Bobby hissed back, not even having the courtesy to look up from the spread of papers across the desktop. “I ain’t planning on grandkids and I don’t quite foresee any hunts that’re gonna require this as a skill set. So that answer is still, unsurprisingly, ‘no’.”
Dean put his hands over the paper work and leaned in closer. “Fine. Then when Cas starts up again tonight and begs to see Santa, I’ll send him your way and you can deal with the tears and the snot and that face he does.”
Bobby’s eyes went wide under the rim of his ball cap and Dean marked it down as a silent victory, mentally fist-bumping himself – even if he cheated by playing the baby-blues card.
He rolled his eyes and reached for the drawer with the false bottom where he had the secret stash of whiskey Balthazar hadn’t – thank God for small favours – discovered yet. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Sam’s voice echoed out from the foyer. “Dean, we’re almost ready!”
“You’ve got a week to get what you need.” Dean said over his shoulder, leaving to go help finish with the kids.
Seven days (and a veritable field of knee high snowmen – because Gabriel doesn’t understand the concept of ‘in moderation’) later, Dean popped in the ‘Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas’ DVD as a grade A angel distraction. As soon as the stupor set in, he and Sam set about dimming the lights, laying out a few store-bought cookies (their baking adventures resulted in more burn marks and singed wings than it did edible food stuffs) and putting a couple gifts under the tree while Bobby got ready upstairs.
Dean looked up when he heard the boots on the stairs and he had to almost stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from letting out some seriously ugly laughter. It was actually, physically, painful to not laugh. Christ, Bobby even went all out and got the tiny Harry Potter glasses and big-ass fake white beard. Camera, camera, holy shit they have to have a camera somewhere. Cell phone!
“I feel like an idjit and boy, I will kick your ass six ways to Sunday – Christmas be damned – if you don’t put that goddamn phone away right now.” Bobby growled the words around the beard, tugging at it slightly. “This itches.”
“Just think how happy they’re going to be.” Sam said it with a smile, but his lips kept twitching in time with his eyebrows and Dean just knew he was having as much trouble trying not to laugh as he was. “Have you got the bag?”
Bobby gave one last fruitless tug to the beard and tried to adjust the belt over his pillow-stuffed belly at the same time. Dean got a nasty glare for the snort of laughter he not-so-accidentally didn’t manage to suppress.
Santa Singer – yes, he was totally going to call him that for every holiday season for the rest of ever – hefted the lumpy red canvas bag over his shoulder. “Yeah, I got it.”
Dean subtly checked to make sure the kids were still in their Disney-zone. “Awesome. You wait in the hall until Sam gives you the signal, okay?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, idjit. Let’s just get this over with.” He disappeared around the corner and Sam positioned himself in the doorway at the perfect spot to see both Bobby and the kids.
It took a few seconds after hitting the stop button, but eventually Dean did end up with three tiny, unhappy glares directed his way.
“Winchester.” Gabriel said slowly, as if his high-pitched child tones were actually even moderately close to as scary as he was trying to be. “Turn it back on.”
“After.” Dean tucked the remote in the breast pocket of his flannel, well out of reach of grabby angel hands. “First, we’ve got a visitor.”
Three heads popped up over the back of the couch, checking the room for potential visitors. Aside from Sam, they saw no one and Dean was once again treated to a narrow eyed stare in triplicate. While they weren’t looking, Sam gestured to Bobby and the moment he stepped in the room it was chaos.
Dean isn’t exactly sure what happened first. Later, Sam tells him, it was the couch flipping over. Which knocked over the end table and the lamp. Bobby got knocked on his ass by Balthazar and Gabriel while Cas went for Dean’s legs – which ended with him falling into the bookcase. Dean hitting the bookcase caused half a dozen odds and ends, and thirteen books (he’d counting during clean up) to fall on his head. Cas had been shrieking something like “Thank you, Dean, thank you!” before he pounced Singer Santa with his brothers.
Currently, Dean was sitting at the kitchen table with a plastic bag full of ice wrapped in a towel sitting on the top of his head. He was watching the angels swarm around Bobby’s legs while he sat in the armchair. After checking to make sure that Dean and his bag of ice were safe and secure in the kitchen, Sam had taken to flitting around the group by the arm chair and snapping as many pictures as Bobby’s old camera could take.
Dean’d be damned if the scene wasn’t making a weird sort of warmth spread through his chest.
Yeah, he couldn’t help the little smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth when Cas managed to crawl up into Bobby’s lap and launch into the list of unsurprisingly unselfish requests. Gabriel and Balthazar seemed more interested in Santa Singer’s bag – but that was expected. Every so often, Cas would turn his head and flash anything ranging from small smiles to wide grins at him.
The radio was playing softly in the background and Dean hummed along to Jingle Bell Rock, quietly basking in a rare, warm, Christmas Eve.