Holly Jolly | Part Three
"-and then we're gonna go tobogganing," Jo interjects with relish. "Castiel, are you getting all this?"
"What- Cas, no," Sam says, shaking his head as he devotes both hands to petting the dog- who’s named Rumsfeld, Castiel has learned. "You don't have to write that down."
"But I want to," Castiel murmurs; how else will he remember? He prints TABAGAN - FORM OF TRANSPORT? very carefully in the notebook Bobby had lent him. Human methods of writing are so unwieldy.
Ellen, reading over his shoulder, taps the first syllable with a finger. "That's an 'O'. Pretty sure the next one's an 'O', too. And two 'G's. There you go," as Castiel dutifully makes the corrections. "And a toboggan is a type of sled."
"Ah," Castiel says, brightening. Christmas music is full of sleds. "How many horses will it have?"
Even Rufus chuckles at that, and Castiel looks around at them. "What?"
"Different kind of sled," Jo explains.
"Man, I don't want to drag the toboggan out," Dean says, face still buried in his mug. "That thing weighs fifty pounds if it weigh an ounce, and it's hanging up on the wall in the garage, isn't it?"
"Same place it always is," Bobby says. "I don't know why you're pitching a fit, you're twice as big as you were the last time that thing came down."
The list under Castiel's pen is as follows:
- TREE - TODAY (ORNAMENTS IN GARAGE? LOOK IN ATTIC TOO)
- WHEN THE SNOW STOPS - GROCERIES FOR DINNER (PLAN FOR TEN TWELVE)
DEAN'S PIE IS IMPORTANT
"Not as important as my potatoes," Ellen had said, and Castiel had dutifully added them to the list.
& ELLEN'S POTATO^eS ARE AS WELL
- BINGO ? -> IS A GAME PLAYED WITH CARDS BUT IS NOT A CARD GAME
- HELP WRAP PRESENTS
BOBBY MAINTAINS THERE ARE NO PRESENTS
DEAN SAYS THERE ARE, HE HIDES THEM IN THE SAME PLACE EVERY YEAR AND DEAN CHECKED
DEAN IS GETTING COAL FOR CHRISTMAS
"I am not, don't write that down," Dean had protested.
DEAN IS GETTING COAL FOR CHRISTMAS
- TOMORROW MORNING -> HUNTING TRIP ??
- TARA IS COMING -> MAYBE
- ASH IS COMING -> PROBABLY
- HELP RUFUS FINISH LIGHTS
- WASSAIL, WHICH HAS BOTH EGGS AND BEER
MAKE SURE THERE IS ENOUGH BEER LEFT OVER FOR PERSONS WHO DO NOT WISH TO PARTAKE OF WASSAIL
"Pretty sure you can leave that one off," Sam had said dryly.
Dean had elbowed him in the side. "Hey, speak for yourself, freegan."
"Do you even know what that word means?"
"… somebody dumb. Who drinks shit like wassail."
And finally,
- TABAGAN - FORM OF TRANSPORT? TOBOGGAN IS A SLED (NO HORSES)
Castiel has just finished inscribing this last item when a phone rings somewhere inside the house, and Bobby climbs to his feet.
"Duty calls, folks."
"Mmhm," Rufus says vaguely, still looking at Castiel's list. "Definitely keep the beer on there. Add some bourbon, too."
The ringing phone stops, and Bobby voice drifts in from the next room. “Special Agent Mathers. Yes. Yeah.”
Castiel is engrossed in spelling 'bourbon' when he hears the man say, "Mmhm. Just let me- hey, you! Get out of that!"
Somehow, Castiel is not surprised to look up and see Gabriel allowing himself to be pushed into the room, still holding an ancient-looking book and a brass spyglass.
“Morning, everyone,” he says brightly.
"Give me those," Bobby says irritably, pulling the book and spyglass away. "If you're planning on enjoying my hospitality, you respect the house rules, we clear? And the rules say don't touch what ain’t yours!"
"Oh, absolutely," Gabriel says, as if the idea had never crossed his mind. "My humblest apologies."
"And this is Gabriel, everyone," Sam says, sighing. "He’s Cas’ brother, and he… works with me at my part-time job."
"I'm a freelance acquisition specialist," Gabriel says with a grin. "You've got some very interesting specimens in your library, Bobby Singer."
Bobby points a final warning finger at him and shuffles back to the library with his things. Jo says, "Wow, his brother? Small world!"
Castiel gives Gabriel a pointed stare and he shrugs, unrepentant. "Sure it is. About that list you've got going-"
Castiel instinctively holds it away from him.
"Just a few suggestions," Gabriel wheedles. "Tiny things, really-"
Gabriel's additions are for the most part voted (shouted) down, but the liquor list gets markedly longer and, in a concentrated war of attrition, he manages to convince Bobby to add all sorts of exotic things to the menu for the next few days.
“And where are we supposed to get star anise and cardamom in this town, huh?” the man asks irritably, frowning at their grocery list. “Quail’s easy enough, got plenty of them out back, and venison in the freezer downstairs. But what in the seven hells is mascarpone?”
“A cheese. And I’m sure someone will have what we need,” Gabriel demurs, which Castiel knows to mean that some hapless grocer in town will find himself ringing up things like Russian sturgeon and zebra meat in short order.
Half an hour later, when songbird tongues (neatly labeled and priced by the pound) roll past on the grocery conveyer belt, Castiel pretends not to notice and hopes that Ellen won’t examine her cart too closely.
“Um,” the cashier says, reading the label.
“It’s from the seasonal section,” Gabriel says breezily.
“Right,” the young man says dubiously, and scans it in.
Dean and Rufus are waiting outside in the truck, Dean sitting slumped and sulky in the passenger’s seat. No one had offered to help him dig the Impala out of the ten-foot drift that had built up on the lee side of the house in the night, and he’s still being aggressively resentful about it.
He turns to them as soon as they open the doors. “Did you get my-?”
Gabriel drops two bulging paper bags onto his lap, and Dean makes increasingly excited noises as he shifts through their contents while the rest of them load the cab.
“Where the hell did you get grasshopper pie at this time of the year? And Derby pie? Oh, man, I am going to eat all of this one-”
“Fatass,” Sam grunts, hefting another heavy bag into the back seat.
“At least I’ve got something to keep my jeans up, Ichabod,” Dean says, happily nose-deep in pies. “Yours is practically concave.”
“Excuse you, my ass is perfect,” Sam says, climbing in.
“Yes it is,” Jo says appreciatively, admiring the view.
“I’m sure you’ll both get dates to the dance, girls,” Ellen says, tapping her foot impatiently. “Now can we all just get in the damn truck?”
They can, as it turns out- but not comfortably, and certainly not with any kind of dignity. They'd been packed in like sardines to start with, and that leaves very few options for transporting both groceries and people back to the house in one trip.
“Why am I stuck with this heavy bastard?” Dean complains, Gabriel seated squarely across his legs with the pies in his arms, looking inordinately pleased with the situation.
“Because the only lap my daughter is sitting on is mine, Dean Winchester,” Ellen says coolly, pulling her seatbelt around the both of them. Jo shrugs philosophically.
“Am I heavy?” Castiel asks Sam, craning his head back to see his face.
“Only a lot,” Sam says with a grimace, shifting under him. “And have I mentioned how bony your butt is?”
“Several times, yes,” Castiel notes sourly.
Groceries successfully wedged into every other available space- on the seats, on the floor, in their hands, under their feet- Rufus backs the truck out of the parking lot and onto the barely-plowed country highway.
"Goddamn it, Gabe, will you stop wiggling?"
It's a new and interesting sensation, to feel as well as hear Sam's frustrated groan.
There’s plenty more work to be done around the house, once the many, many loads of groceries have made their way in.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Gabriel announces, the second Bobby and Rufus mention anything like manual labor.
Rufus harrumphs under his breath. "Sure. Knock yourself out. Dean-"
"Dean's dicing onions," Gabriel says, and pulls Dean after him, ignoring his protesting, "Wait, what? Why me?"
Rufus eyes Sam and Castiel. "Any prior appointments on your part, boys?" he drawls.
"Not that I know of," Sam says.
"Can I help hang the lights?" Castiel asks eagerly.
"Don't let Castiel on the roof, he'll break something," Gabriel calls from the hallway. “Probably his neck.”
"I won't," Castiel promises. "I have very good balance."
"Uh huh," Bobby says doubtfully. "Sam, why don't you take Jo and Cas up to the loft, see what decorations are there from last year? I think the old men can handle a few strings of twinklers."
"I'll alert the fire department," Ellen says dryly. "And someone needs to supervise that kitchen. No offense, Castiel, but give him half a chance and that brother of yours would probably sling cactus hash and sheep's eyeballs for dinner. Don't think I didn't see him put that octopus in the cart."
Jo makes a disgusted face. Sam mouths, Octopus?
Castiel nods. “Yes, that is probably wise.”
The loft is dark and chilly, occupying the spare bit of space under the detached garage’s peaked roof. They take a ladder from the side of the house and run it up to a counterweighted door in the ceiling, Sam climbing up and thumping at it until it swings up and away.
Above, light shines in from high windows and the ends of roofing nails protrude through the plywood like clusters of iron stars. Sam keeps a hunched posture as he passes box after box after box to Castiel (standing on a middle rung) who passes them to Jo (standing at the bottom), who has amassed a pile taller than she is by the time Sam crouches down and announces, “Think that’s all of them.”
Jo eyes them thoughtfully. “I was going to say something but- you know Bobby usually just grabs one or two and throws whatever’s in there on the tree?”
"Oh." Sam looks at the pile, then back into the loft. "I suppose we could put some back."
"No," Jo says slowly, a manic gleam dawning in her eyes. "Wait. He's got all these boxes labeled Christmas and he never puts any of it up? That's just stupid. We should surprise them!"
"Well, all of them seems a little much-" Sam starts.
"Come on, it'll be fun! You want to, don't you, Cas?" Jo says excitedly.
"Yes, very much," Castiel says, because happiness has seeped out and stained the humble cardboard with indelible impressions of love and good cheer. It’s making him smile just by proximity.
"Oh, fine," Sam says, smiling back at him. "Hold the ladder for me, someone?"
It takes several trips, but they fit all the boxes in through the kitchen, where Gabriel is attempting to teach Ellen how to shuck an oyster. Rumsfeld sits with his head in Ellen’s lap, tail swinging ponderously from side to side.
“When did we get oysters?” Sam asks over the top of his box.
“Why did we get oysters?” Jo adds, looking around the side of hers.
“Hell if I know,” Dean grumps, wiping angrily at his reddened eyes. He has his sleeves rolled up and a bubblegum-pink apron tied around his waist, a small mountain of yellow onions and garlic on the counter beside him. “Hey, Sam, I’ll trade you-”
“Not a chance,” Sam says, sailing past him.
“Cas? Jo?” Dean says piteously. “Come on, I’m dying over- fuck!” he yelps, victim of a stinging swat from the dishtowel draped over Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Chop now, talk later,” their masterchef orders with narrowed eyes.
Castiel spares Dean a sympathetic look, but he’s sure to get out while he still can.
There’s a room near the front of the house, little used by the amount of dust on the fixtures and bookshelves. Bobby had told them the tree would go in here, once they cleared away some of the accumulated junk. Castiel finds Sam and Jo already sitting down, peering into the boxes they’d brought and lifting things to examine them in the dim sunlight.
“Ornaments will have to wait for the tree,” Sam is saying. “Do you think Bobby will let us put up the garlands, though?”
“I don’t see why not,” Jo says cheerfully, pulling out a long rope of bristly fake pine. “There are wreaths and things in here too. I say we put them all up.”
Sam glances at the tower of boxes, and back at her.
“Yep,” Jo says firmly. “All of it.”
“Event these?” Castiel asks, looking down at his handfuls of yellowed and torn paper snowflakes.
“... within reason,” Jo allows.
At some point Rufus steps in, stares at the twirling plastic reindeer, frothing ribbon around every doorway and balustrade, and the snowbound porcelain village Castiel is painstakingly assembling on the dining room hutch, and steps right back out.
“Bobby!” Castiel hears him yell outside, muted by the glass of the windows. “You’d better check on these dumbass kids of yours!”
Fainter still is Bobby’s reply. “I would, if someone hadn’t taken my goddamn ladder!”
The sun is well past its zenith by the time everyone troops back into the house for lunch, and by then it's too late for anyone to stop them.
“It’s like Christmas puked in here,” Dean says admiringly, clapping a hand to Sam’s shoulder. “Good job, guys.”
Ellen bats the trailing end of a silver festoon away from her face. “I leave you alone for five minutes-”
“It’s Christmas, Mom,” Jo protests. “It’s festive.”
“It’s like we flooded,” Bobby says, sounding dazed. “Only instead of mud we got tinsel, and those little bells and bows and things.”
"I'm guessing Sam did the ceiling decor," Gabriel drawls, tipping his head back. "That looks... seasonably garish."
“Well, I like it,” Castiel says stoutly. He does. It’s frenetic and cluttered, things taped to the molding and walls and crammed onto every shelf and table, but it looks… homey.
They make a slow circuit of the house to admire (despair) over each detail- the bows on the doorknobs, the fake poinsettias on the hearth and pinned above it, all the salvageable paper snowflakes taped carefully to the windows.
"What the- who got this all out?" Bobby says, stepping up to the miniature village. For a moment his expression seems almost angry.
"Oh, I- I apologize," Castiel says as Bobby leans over the display, looking down at the tiny figures frolicking in the streets. "They were in the boxes, and-"
"Nah, it's fine." One blunt fingertip brushes the porcelain heads of a courting couple: a grinning woman, a laughing man. "I just haven't seen 'em since... in a while. Surprised me," the man says.
"Oh," Castiel says.
“You did a good job.”
“Thank you,” Castiel says.
Into the palpable awkwardness that follows, Dean sets a hand on his stomach and exclaims, "I don't know about you, but my belly button is rubbing a hole in my backbone. To the kitchen!” and Sam and the others shuffle off and out of the room.
Bobby stays a moment longer, Castiel notices, tracing the smooth cheek of the smiling coquette.
In the kitchen, various jewel-toned foodstuffs are met with open curiosity (Jo) and chary stares (Rufus). The sandwich Gabriel eventually sets in front of Castiel is filled with something lumpy and purple, and he looks askance at his brother.
“It’s portobellos in raspberry aioli and brie,” Gabriel says, nudging it closer. “Try it, you’ll like it.”
"This isn't going to be like the mud pies, is it?" Castiel asks warily, and Gabriel has the gall to look offended.
Rufus, Bobby and Ellen claim post-meal naps as an old person's privilege, and after some good-natured ribbing the rest of them trudge outside to the edge of the woods, Dean motioning them all into a huddle at the tree line to lay out the plan.
"Okay, guys, this is serious business," Dean says, breath fogging in long plumes from his mouth. "We keep looking until we find the perfect one. No substitutes, no settling. It's gotta have a nice shape, and good branch spacing. Nothing too woolly, you can't put ornaments on that shit. No white pines either, those look fu- fricking dumb. And it has to look good from all sides, none of that ‘turn the bad spot into the wall’ crap."
"Okay, sergeant," Jo says with a mock salute, a broad-headed ax on her shoulder. "Lead the charge."
"Let me finish my damn cocoa," Dean says, slurping noisily at a travel mug. "It's cold as a witch's ti- uh, bits out here."
"Are those as cold as a warlock's cock?" Jo asks dryly. "Because if so, I agree."
"Jesus, Jo," Dean says, but it's with a grin. "Your mom said she'd kill me if I corrupted you."
She makes a show of rolling her eyes. "Who exactly do you think taught me that one? Finish your baby drink, let's get tree-hunting."
The snow, still falling in fits and starts from the solid drape of pearl-gray clouds, has drifted to mid-hip in some places. There's one memorable moment when Dean trips and disappears into an unexpectedly deep hollow, powder resettling around his imprint like as if he was never there, and Sam and Castiel have to haul him out sputtering and cursing while Jo and Gabriel catcall. Gabriel is bundled up in so many layers of red wool and down he looks round, like a puffed-up cardinal, and when Castiel tells him so and gets knocked into a hollow of his own.
"Hey, Cas, can you see China?" Dean calls as Sam grabs one of Castiel's flailing hands. "I swear I damn near could."
"I don't- ah! I don’t understand how that could be possible," Castiel coughs, waving his other hand until Sam catches it as well. There's a disorienting second where he feels like he's falling up, and then, even more dizzyingly, he's lying on top of Sam while Sam laughs, flat on his back in the deep snow.
“Oh my God, your face,” he says, his hands in their borrowed mittens brushing roughly at the snow clinging to Castiel’s hair and, presumably, his cheeks. Castiel ducks his head into the gap between Sam’s coat and chin to get away from the ungentle rubbing and Sam yelps, “Cold nose, cold nose!”
Dean dumps an armful of snow on them both, and for a time their expedition is derailed in a flurry of snowballs and raucous laughter. Sam and Castiel face Dean and Jo in a pitched battle of skill and stealth, Gabriel sitting on a fallen cottonwood and watching with an air of bored indulgence until a stray projectile catches him full in the face.
Predictably, once engaged Gabriel plays with ferocious zeal. Also predictably, his final volley is enough to end the game for everyone.
An ominous shudder from above, and Castiel hears Dean shout, “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ-!” as the entire forest turns white around them, all the trees shedding their burdens of ice and snow at once.
When Castiel finally claws his way out, Gabriel is perched on a stump above him, radiating smugness.
“That was extraordinarily nasty of you,” Castiel tells him, which only makes him smile wider.
“That was fucking amazing!” Dean crows, kicking up through the mess. “How’d you do that?”
“How,” Sam echoes dazedly, still mostly buried. “How even.”
“I have ice in my long johns, you dicksmack!” Jo shrieks.
“Jo!”
“Fuck you, Dean, my mom is not here!”
Somewhat battered and exhausted, they resume their hunt for a Christmas tree- Jo wincing and walking strangely, Dean charging out ahead like a one-man scouting party. Sam’s mittens are soaked, and he peels them off and stuffs them into a pocket as he trots after Dean, breathing into his cupped hands.
"C'mon, Cas!" he yells cheerfully, waving at him to follow. "I think the mighty tree hunter heard something this way!"
"Fuck off!" comes Dean's voice from ahead.
Castiel smiles and steps after him, but a hand settles on his arm. Gabriel’s grip bites deep into the muscle at the crook of his elbow, and Castiel comes to a stop, surprised.
“Yes?”
"Wait," the archangel says simply.
Dean and Sam move out of sight over a small hill, Jo following shortly. They’re still audible, though that too is growing fainter. The light is taking on a wan gold color now, long shadows slanting across the forest floor in blues and greys. Castiel waits, looking curiously at his brother.
Gabriel isn’t looking at him. He's gazing at a patch of trees across a ravine to their right, with enough intensity that Castiel half-expects the bark to begin smoldering. Nothing moves but the shadows, sent rippling across the ground by an unfelt breeze that stirs the trees that cast them.
“Gabriel?” Castiel says, when he can barely hear the bay of Sam’s laughter.
Gabriel’s stare flickers briefly to him, and he lifts his hand from Castiel’s arm, one finger raised. His eyes have come over a solid, feral gold.
Castiel closes his mouth, and gathers himself to move. The snow muffles their breath and steps, mutes the noise of the wind and the sounds of animals in the underbrush. He cannot see anything, anything at all, but he shifts into position at Gabriel’s back, eyes sweeping the copses of trees and their thin, naked branches with growing unease.
"You. Depart from us," the archangel says, finally.
The words are quiet and softly spoken to Castiel’s human ears. They peal like a clarion call across the higher planes and Castiel’s wings flare in response, echoing their message.
“You are not welcome here,” Gabriel whispers, and it thunders. His own wings in their soaring rows are slowly rising, and in the here-not-here he towers over Castiel’s slighter frame, dwarfing him several times over.
For a moment, nothing happens. Castiel’s sword falls into his waiting hand.
Then, so subtly Castiel almost doesn't sense it at all, the shadows… lighten.
Castiel spins in the snow, looking wildly around at the innocuous woods, because it lightens everywhere, above and below and in all directions. His heart beats hard in his frail-feeling chest. "What was it? Where was it? I didn’t see-"
“Calm yourself,” his brother says, and Castiel shrinks back from the battering force of it, clapping his hands to his ears. “Oh, for- sorry, sorry, I’m dialing it down, see, itty-bitty inside voice. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Castiel mumbles. The searing reality of Gabriel’s true form is folding in on itself, flames dying back to embers. “What did you see?”
“Almost nothing,” Gabriel says, and he is abruptly just Gabriel once more: short, round, red. His eyes are brown, and thoughtful where they rest on Castiel. “That worries me.”
“We are near the devil’s gate,” Castiel offers, and Gabriel’s eyebrows rise.
“It’s years too early for that,” he says, but he looks around them with new wariness.
“We should catch up to the others,” Castiel says with growing alarm. “Sam-“
"Yes," Gabriel says, still scanning the trees. "Sam."
But Sam, at least, seems perfectly fine.
“Hey, you made it!” he calls, waving them over. He’s as bright and steady as he always is to Castiel’s eyes, placid soul unaffected by whatever entity Gabriel has chased away. “Come look at this shitty tree Dean picked out!”
Dean brandishes the ax at him. “Can it, bozo. It’s a beautiful tree. An amazing tree. The most perfect tree in the universe.”
Castiel is honestly not sure what distinguishes it, a young middling-tall fir, from any other of a similar size and species. Sam likes another, and Jo a third, but all other opinions are summarily discarded by the man with the ax, and they proceed to chop down Dean’s choice. It’s surprisingly heavy, but between the four of them (Gabriel categorically declines to help), they manage to drag it back to the road, and from there to the house. The severed trunk drips sap down Sam’s shoulder, which he curses when he notices.
The tree barely fits through the front door, and showers them all with needles when it finally springs free of the frame and into the foyer. Rumsfeld snuffles through the piles with great interest, tripping all of them in turn as they maneuver the tree through the foyer.
"I can't go on," Jo moans. "Please, can't we drop it for a second?"
“We could, if we had a fricking tree stand!” Dean pants, looking around the dusty front room. “You’re telling me you brought in the rest of this crap and didn’t bring the stand?”
“Um,” Sam says.
Bobby, who’s just gotten up from his prone position the couch, rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, for the love of-”
The tree stand is quickly retrieved and Dean and Sam wrestle the fir into place, catty-corner from the door. The bark is rough under Castiel’s palms as he helps hold it upright so Dean can drop to the floor and roll onto his back to squirm under it. He yells at them to hold it straighter, no, straighter the other way, damn it, and tightens the screws until the tree can stand on its own.
“Whew. How are we looking out there?” he asks the room at large.
“Looking good,” Ellen confirms. “Nice pick, kids.”
“All hail the mighty tree-hunter,” Gabriel says with a smirk. Sam and Jo look sour. Dean, covered from the chest up by the fir’s lower branches, raises a fist with his middle finger extended.
Now come the lights, and though there are far too many strands to fit on one tree, there are almost too few that work. In the end they have just enough, and the rest are relocated to the trash bins outside.
Then, the ornaments. “Did you bring down every damn box in that loft?” Bobby asks, lifting set after set out of the larger containers. “I think some of these were my Granny’s.”
Sam, who loves old things, immediately reaches for them with an, “Oh, can I see?” and from that point on withdraws into his own little world, occasional exclamations of, “Wow!” and “This is so cool!” the only reminder he’s still in the room. The rest of them work around him, hanging felt birds and glass spheres and a small wooden dog, which, Bobby gruffly explains, his mother purchased when he was a child.
“I think we should put this one at the top of the tree,” Gabriel says, and opens his hands to reveal a painted glass angel of impossible delicacy. It has six wings and a noble, almost Roman profile, and Gabriel returns Castiel’s arch glance with an impenitent look of his own.
“Ooo,” Jo says, reaching for it. “Pretty!”
“That’s new,” Bobby says, squinting at it. “I think?”
Rufus, combing through various bags with one hand and supporting a steaming mug of something very alcoholic in the other, says, “All that junk we brought home, and no one bothered to pick up any candy canes?”
“Oh, really?” Gabriel asks.
“Wait, I think I see some. Yeah, here we go. Budge up there, Bobby, the damn thing’s got enough glass on it already-”
“Gabriel,” Castiel groans.
“Castiel,” Gabriel replies, plucking a sugarplum from empty air and tossing it in his mouth. Rumsfeld, who has unsurprisingly begun to associate Gabriel with all things edible, rests his head on the archangel’s shoulder and drools until he gets one too.
Later, much later, after the sun sets and dinner (“It’s souvlaki!” “It’s soo-what?”) is had, they come back to the tree to admire its glow in the darkened room. The paint is flaking off the tiny light bulbs and some of the ornaments are quite worn, but Castiel looks from the tree to their warmly lit faces and is reminded of Sam’s slow, slurred definition of the word home. He can see why a heart might become confused.
Ellen announces her intention to start the wassail, and Bobby counters with a film that, from Dean’s description, draws most of its humor from a child’s overwhelming desire for a rifle and a lamp shaped like a woman’s leg in hosiery. They trickle out of the room, bound for the kitchen or den, and Castiel is about to follow when he notices Sam’s lingering in the doorway.
“Sam?”
It’s a moment before he looks back, but when he does, he smiles at Castiel. “Hey, Cas. I’ll catch up in just a minute, okay?”
“Okay,” Castiel says, and stays where he is. Sam’s eyes move towards the tree again, and they stand in companionable silence.
Eventually, Sam speaks. “Cas, you’re- you’re glad you came? With me, I mean.”
“Very,” Castiel says. “Are you?”
Sam looks at him, head to the side with a little grin. “Glad I came? Or glad you came with me?”
Castiel thinks about this. “Either. No, both. Are you pleased I came?”
“Well, you’ve definitely distracted them,” Sam says wryly. “And Gabriel is much less of a disaster than I was expecting, despite the octopus. So… yes. To either. Both.”
“Ah. Good,” Castiel says, and they lapse into silence again.
It goes on for long enough that Castiel is considering the appropriateness of a comment on the weather when Sam abruptly says, “You know, my dad might come.”
Sam very rarely has anything to say about his father, and even more rarely is it neutral or kind. “Yes?”
“Maybe just for a day,” Sam says. His lips are still arranged in the shape of a smile, but he no longer looks happy. “Or maybe not. Like I said, it wasn’t an every-year thing for us. But he was in Branson the last Bobby heard, so… he might come.”
“All right,” Castiel says, slowly. “That’s good to know.”
“There was this thing he used to do,” Sam says, shoving his hands in his pockets with an awkward laugh. “With the tree, when we were kids and we came here. He’d… we’d crawl under and he’d tell us to look up through the branches. He said there were elves or fairies or something and that if we were quiet, they’d come out. It was pretty stupid,” he adds.
“Was it?” Castiel asks, and Sam looks away.
“Well, looking back it was,” he says quietly. “Sometimes we’d be down here for hours because Dean would swear he’d seen something. Really, I think it was just because the lights look pretty from underneath.”
“I want to see,” Castiel says immediately, and steps past Sam towards the tree.
“Cas, it’s- you’ll get needles everywhere,” Sam protests, following him.
Castiel kneels next to the tree, considering the narrow gap between tree skirt and the lowest branches. “Hm. How do I-?”
“On your back, but you shouldn’t- Cas,” Sam says on a laugh, as Castiel lays carefully on his stomach, then rolls directly onto one of the metal struts of the tree stand.
“Ow,” Castiel says, craning his head back to judge his distance from the trunk. Too far. He wiggles backwards experimentally, and has to close his eyes as needles scratch his face and tangle in his hair. “This is very, ow, uncomfortable.”
“I tried to warn you,” Sam says, and gentle hands smooth the branches away and feel their way to the back of Castiel’s head, urging him on. The strut digs painfully into his back, but Castiel settles against the nubby velvet skirt and looks up into a strange new world of gleaming glass and twinkling, directionless light, the tree’s limbs threaded through them like a ladder’s rungs.
Something knocks against his shoulder, and Sam wriggles into place beside him, hair falling away from his face as he sets his head down next to Castiel’s.
“Okay, so it’s a little cool,” he says. His chin tips back as he prods a diamond-shaped ornament hanging directly above him, making it spin. “Forced perspective, right?”
“Mmhm,” Castiel says, because Sam is suddenly very close, a solid line of heat where their arms touch. Castiel has his head turned towards Sam, and when Sam turns as well Castiel can feel Sam’s exhaled breath on his mouth. His lips part in response.
“...Cas?” Sam says softly, the tiny light bulbs leaving smears of yellow and pink and blue on his skin.
“Yes?” Castiel responds, though he’s hardly knows of what he’s agreeing to. Sam’s arm is so warm, heat bleeding through his shirt and Castiel’s sweater.
Sam bites his lip, and that small motion arrests Castiel’s attention completely. “Listen, Cas. I think-”
“Hey, fairies!” Dean’s voice says from far too close, and the tree shakes and lights wobble as he worms his way into the sliver of space on Sam’s other side. “I’d forgotten about this! Seen anything yet?”
Sam’s head whips around, and he snaps, ”Do we look five?”
The tree shakes again and Dean yips, “Ow! Why’d you kick me?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” Sam grumbles, and quickly squirms out from under the tree.
“Bitch,” Dean calls after him, moving into his spot. “Cas and I will have more fun without you anyway!”
Although Castiel knows Dean isn’t actually an idiot, he can’t help but feel a certain desire to kick him as well.
The days leading up to Christmas are very, very cold, even for winter in South Dakota, Bobby assures them. The ice plagues them, the woodpile dwindles precipitously, and all vehicles are soon declared lost causes and abandoned to their fates, blanketed by layer after layer of snow.
To Castiel, however, the days seem suffused with a peculiar temperateness that comes from his enjoyment of the company, and their evident and somewhat surprising enjoyment of him. There are moments he remembers with sharp clarity- Sam falling asleep slumped against Castiel’s shoulder, Gabriel gasping with honest laughter at some sly thing Dean’s said- interspersed with long periods that he remembers more as impressions than events: watery morning sunlight, the toboggan’s weight. The sting of the wind in his face and the lurch of his stomach as they teeter at the edge of the steep slope. The burst of flavor and heat that is wassail. The way Sam’s sweatshirt smells when he pulls it forcibly down over Castiel’s head, claiming he’s getting cold just looking at him.
The days pass, quietly and happily.
Very early on the eve of Christmas Eve, Castiel is enjoying a bowl of cereal with Dean when he hears something outside, crunching footsteps and muffled laughter drawing closer. A moment later Ellen, Jo and Bobby burst in through the back door, bringing the clean smell of snow and pine with them.
"Hey, boys!" Ellen greets them. "Looks like we won't be snowshoeing to Safeway for our turkey dinner."
Bobby holds up an obviously deceased and alarmingly large bird by its feet, beaming.
“That’s not dinner,” Dean says blankly, spoon halfway to his mouth. “That is a dead animal.”
“Hate to break it to you, babe,” Jo says cheerily, “but we eat dead animals around here.”
Castiel looks at Ellen, but the woman is grinning and swinging a brace of at least five smaller but just as thoroughly dead fowl from her shoulder.
"C'mon, he-men," she says cheerfully. "Time to get guttin' and pluckin'."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Dean breathes.
He isn’t, but Sam is, after coming downstairs still yawning only to be faced with the disemboweled remains of the dead turkey strewn across the newspaper-covered kitchen table.
Dean’s still making fun of him when he emerges from the bathroom half an hour later, but by then Gabriel is up and has his octopus out, and strangely enough no one wants to be in the same room with it and its long, fleshy arms. They evacuate the kitchen, Dean the quickest of any of them, but he snags Castiel’s sleeve as he goes and says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”
He seems oddly wary, and he keeps glancing around as if to make sure they’re alone in Bobby’s study. It’s barely occurred to Castiel to be worried when Dean lowers his voice and says, “I found this weird book in Baton Rouge, I need you to tell me if Sam will like it,” and apprehension dissolves like frost in sunlight.
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