SPN FIC - Because It's Christmas
Okay - done ficcing for today. Must...rest...brain. In the meanwhile, here's Christmas 1993.
Characters: John and Dean (age 14)
Pairings: none
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG, on general principles (and some language)
Length: 1504 words
Disclaimer: I'm way too tired to claim to own anything.
“Where did you get all this?” John asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. The boy had never admitted to it, but thanks to Sam’s occasionally less than discreet sensibilities, John knew Dean had more than once pilfered what he thought he needed to spruce up Sam’s Christmas. And somehow, Christmas and thievery didn’t seem to go together.
Because It’s Christmas
By Carol Davis
John gave his son a nudge in the middle of the back and got him moving toward the bathroom. Dean went with him willingly, grinning like a drunken fool, pleased as hell with himself for what he’d done to the trailer.
“You want to explain that to me?” John said, pointing to the toilet.
“It’s a Santa thing,” his 14-year-old replied. “You know. A seat cover.”
“Supposed to go on the other side of the seat. The top side.”
Dean’s grin flickered a little, then came back, full wattage. “Yeah, but the seat’s always up, so nobody’d see it. So I put it on that side.”
“Son. I don’t really care to have Santa Claus watching me piss.”
“You could leave the light off.”
He was so damn-fool happy it was tough to shoot him down. “That would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn’t it?” John said mildly.
“Oh. Well, yeah, I guess.”
“Go with me on that one thing. And I’ll…let the rest of it slide.”
There was a lot of “the rest of it.” On every wall, every windowframe, every surface, flat or not. Sam’s blue ribcord bedspread had been changed out for red, John’s for green. Tinsel garland marked the borderline between every wall and the ceiling. The lamps had Christmas-themed shades. The Kleenex box had a felt Christmas cover on it. Christmas throw pillows sat humped on the couch and John’s recliner. There was a Christmas cover on the toaster, and the front of the fridge boasted about eight hundred Christmas magnets. The windows had been sprayed with fake snow - and why that was necessary, John couldn’t figure out, because there was a good six inches of the real deal on the ground.
To top everything off, in the corner John’s recliner usually occupied stood a lopsided six-foot artificial tree festooned with blinking multicolored lights, several strings of the same tinsel garland that topped the walls, and the most eclectic collection of ornaments John had ever seen.
The result was…blinding.
Sucking in a deep breath, John sat down on the recliner (as best he could, given the bulk of the throw pillows) and blinked at his surroundings.
Yeah, there was more.
A parade of elves stood under the tree with a grinning ceramic Rudolph. Strings of lights were wound around the curtainrods. A row of snow globes adorned the top of the TV, and the remote had been tucked into a Christmas-themed felt holder. A red, green and white crocheted throw blanket lay (somewhat less than artistically) draped over the back of the couch.
“Where did you get all this?” John asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. The boy had never admitted to it, but thanks to Sam’s occasionally less than discreet sensibilities, John knew Dean had more than once pilfered what he thought he needed to spruce up Sam’s Christmas. And somehow, Christmas and thievery didn’t seem to go together.
“I bought it.”
John glanced around, trying not to wince. “You bought all this? With what? One of the Rockefellers died and made you their heir?”
“Yard sales,” Dean said.
“Yard sales.”
“Like last year? Remember?”
“Son, this is nothing like last year. Last year was that little tree and a bunch of odds and ends.”
Dean followed his father’s gaze around the room, still very obviously tickled with himself. “I started sooner this time. You can buy whole boxes of stuff for like five bucks. All of this was maybe…I don’t know, twenty dollars?”
“Twenty American dollars.”
“Yeah. People pretty much give the stuff away.”
“I can see why.”
“It’s for Sam.”
And that was pretty much all the justification Dean needed to do anything. He would have stolen the stuff, if he’d needed to. Without worrying about prosecution, maybe, because stealing a collection of crap like this seemed like a public service - provided it never saw the light of day again.
A little salt and burn after the holidays seemed in order.
Minus the salt.
Dean perched on the edge of the couch and admired his handiwork. “It’s pretty cool,” he said, clearly not noticing - or maybe not caring about - John’s lack of enthusiasm. “There’s more, but I couldn’t figure out a place to put it. I got kind of carried away. But it was, like, back in September. I just bought it and put it away. I didn’t really figure out an arrangement. So some of it didn’t fit. I can see if the neighbors want it.”
“I’m sure they’d be grateful,” John replied dryly.
“There’s presents, too.”
“And you have those stored in the alternate dimension where you’ve been keeping all this other stuff since September. Because you certainly haven’t kept it here.”
That made Dean’s expression cloud a little. Without meeting John’s eyes he said, “One of the neighbors kept it for me.”
“Generous.”
“Yeah. It - it was. I got music, too. For later. And some videos.”
“Good God, Dean.”
“It’s for -“
“Sam. Yes. I got that.”
“He loves Christmas.”
Debatable, John thought. This was Sam’s 11th Christmas, and to the best of his recollection Sam had been somewhat less than giddy with anticipation about most of them. Maybe because he knew what to expect. Maybe because he expected more.
There was certainly more here.
For a moment, Dean’s collection of yard-sale paraphernalia made John wish Sam still believed in Santa.
“You’ll be here, won’t you?” Dean asked.
“Didn’t plan on going anywhere.”
“For dinner?”
“You buy that at a yard sale too?”
Dean looked chagrined for a moment, as if he realized that maybe he’d gone a little over the top. But that was Dean: if he was going to do it, he was going to do it hell bent for leather. “Could you…make sure the oven works?”
Frowning, John glanced into the kitchen. “Doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. We never use it.”
“You baking a cake?”
“I’m not a girl, Dad.”
“Turkey’s a big undertaking.”
“Chicken,” Dean muttered. “It’s in the fridge.”
He seemed like someone treading water madly, trying to stay afloat. Doubt had started to flicker through his eyes, and his fingers were worrying the frayed spots in the knees of his jeans. It seemed to John sometimes that Dean was two entirely different people: a little boy desperate to please, and a young man on the cusp of being…separate. Able to handle things on his own, coolly, deliberately.
Neither one of those versions of his son managed rejection well.
John shifted up from the chair and switched off the lamp. The overhead lights went next, leaving nothing turned on but the twinkling lights on the tree. The gray winter afternoon sunlight was dim enough to make the tiny bulbs visible in most of their multicolored glory.
“It looks good,” he told Dean.
“You are so full of it, Dad. You think all this is awful.”
“Not the word I’d pick.”
“It’s just kind of…funny, you know? Silly.”
Tasteless was the word John was thinking of. But what the hell. Dean was 14, Sam 10. And he himself wasn’t that far over the hill at 39. He wondered fleetingly what Mary would have thought of all of this. Silly? Silly would appeal to her.
“I’m gonna hit the mall,” he said to Dean. “If I’m not back in a couple days, send out the dogs.”
Dean frowned at that. “Just the mall.”
“The Corps taught me how to go into enemy territory, son. Go in, secure the objective, get out.”
“Yeah?” Dean said. “Good luck with that.”
Smiling, John grabbed his coat from the hook by the door and shrugged into it. “You’re not gonna haul out more of this stuff while I’m gone, are you?”
“Nah. This is pretty much it.”
“Good man.”
Dean’s gaze shifted around the room, taking in all of his handiwork. There was still enough of a flicker of doubt in his eyes that John dropped a hand onto his shoulder. Dean leaned into his touch for a moment, then back out.
“I’ll pick Sammy up on the way back,” John said.
“Thanks.”
Dean was looking at the tree when John moved toward the door. He’d stopped fussing with the knees of his pants and had his hands folded together. It scared John for a moment, the way Dean looked sitting there. No longer a little boy; not even an adolescent, really. Something in the set of his shoulders said he was closer to being grown up than John had a taste for.
And yet, he was crazier than a goddamn loon.
“Be back in a couple hours,” John promised him.
“Later, gator,” Dean said.
John went on out, into the cold of the Nebraska afternoon, and pulled the door shut behind him. He began to laugh softly as he walked away from the trailer, and let it come full force once he’d shut himself inside the car.
For Sammy, he thought. All for Sammy.
That boy couldn’t lie worth a damn.