Fic: Loving the Fall (9/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
It was, without question, the most normal Christmas morning either Winchester could remember. There was a twinkling tree, presents tucked underneath, the smell of gingerbread cookies filling the air, and gathered in the living room an actual family. Dean, Sam, Castiel, Zoë, and Bobby. It was so surreal that Dean found himself glancing more than once at the Devil’s traps under the windows, fully expecting something evil to bust in and ruin it all.
But nothing did, and Zoë jumped up off the couch and dove for a present (almost in a hurry to be the one to play Santa before anyone else claimed the job). She came up with Dean’s gift for Cas. “Here! Let’s start with this one.”
Dean and Castiel were sitting on the floor at the coffee table, sharing a cup of coffee and nibbling on fresh-baked gingerbread men. When Zoë held out the wrapped gift to Castiel, Dean put his cookie down and cleared his throat. Bobby, from his place in the recliner, watched with a glint of amusement in his eyes over the whole thing… as if Christmas was a big school play his surrogate sons were in.
Castiel accepted the gift from Zoë. “Thank you.” He looked toward Dean questioningly.
“Open it,” Dean urged, for the first time nervous that Cas would think it was stupid.
Castiel set to unwrapping the gift with more care than Dean had taken wrapping it. When he’d finally peeled away the paper, he froze and looked down at the gift in his lap.
“Show us what you got, Castiel,” Sam urged.
Castiel did. He held up a tan trench coat… eerily like the one he’d always worn as an angel.
Sam’s eyes widened.
Bobby guffawed.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s stupid, right? It’s been months since you had Jimmy’s, but when I picture you in my head, you’re always wearing one. I saw that in a second-hand store a while back and…” Dean stopped talking, fidgeting.
Castiel let the tan material pool in his lap. “It is not stupid… thank you, Dean.”
“Am I missing something?” Zoë asked.
“Back when Castiel was an angel,” Sam explained, “he always wore the same thing… suit, tie, and trench coat. Hell, even I’ve kind of missed seeing that old coat.”
“I have often wished I could have kept the coat I wore,” Castiel confessed.
“Yeah,” Dean chuckled, “then you wouldn’t have had to show up in the rain naked.”
“What?!” Zoë asked.
“Long story, I’ll tell you later,” Sam promised.
The next present Zoë picked was the envelope to her and Sam from Dean and Castiel. She handed it to Sam to open, “Here, Sam… this one’s for us from Dean and Cas.” When Bobby realized one couple had given the other couple a gift, a damnably normal and domestic thing to do, he gave the boys a knowing look.
Sam opened the envelope, pulled out the card inside, and his eyes brightened. “Oh, wow.”
“What is it?” Bobby asked.
“It’s an adoption voucher from the local animal shelter,” Dean explained. “Fees and everything are paid, all you have to do is go out there and pick out a dog.” Dean paused and grimaced. “Or a cat, I guess, but if you’re a cat person, Zoë, I don’t think I can make peace with that.”
“A dog?” Zoë asked, moving to look at the card.
“I know Sam’s idea of Heaven has dogs,” Dean said cryptically. Sam glanced over at him briefly, they shared a look, and then he was smiling. “What do you think, Zo?”
“What’s wrong with cats?” Castiel asked lowly, leaning toward Dean in the process.
“Dude, don’t tell me you’re a cat person… I totally couldn’t deal with that,” Dean countered.
“This is really thoughtful of you guys,” Zoë finally responded. “I love dogs. After my parents died, I actually wanted to get one, for protection amongst other things, but with school and work, I just didn’t have the time for one. But I’ll be graduating next semester, and with Sam here…”
“So we can get a dog?” Sam asked eagerly.
Zoë gave him a playful shove. “Yes, we can get a dog.”
Sam beamed. “This is awesome! Thanks, guys!”
“My brother, the world’s biggest eight-year-old girl. You watch, he’ll pick out something small with curly hair.”
He took it as a good sign when both Sam and Zoë made a face at that. There might still be hope it’d be a big, manly dog joining the family. Maybe a mastiff or something.
While Sam was fondling the adoption voucher with moist eyes (okay, maybe not, but that was the story Dean would always tell), Zoë went back to the tree and offered up a present to Dean and Cas. “Here… this is from us to the both of you.”
Dean accepted the gift, slid aside the plate of cookies to set it on the table, and tore into the gift. Castiel leaned in close for a better view. When the box lay open, Dean pulled out a photo album.
“Oh, that’s…” he started to say, kind of stumped, when Castiel reached out and opened the hard cover. Dean’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow.” Inside were family pictures. The few the Winchesters had, those the brothers had carried around their whole lives, ones recovered from John Winchester’s possessions, and the pictures from the box found by the woman living in their childhood Kansas home. Dean sat and slowly flipped through the pages. There weren’t many, which made the few they had all the more precious. Most families had volumes and volumes of photo albums… this was the only one Dean had held since he was four that had pictures of his own family. As far as he was concerned, that made it a fucking national treasure.
When they turned the last page with the pictures Dean recognized, he froze when he discovered still more pictures. Recent pictures. Ones with Dean and Castiel in the backyard, Sam and Zoë being all clingy and goofy, the Impala gleaming in the driveway… moments stolen during this new life where they were no longer hunters.
There was many blank pages left for more pictures to be added.
Dean finally looked up at Sam and Zoë. “This is…”
Castiel traced a finger over a picture of himself and Dean standing outside, Dean at the driver’s side of the Impala with Castiel at the passenger’s side, both of them leaning into the car and resting their chins on arms crossed over the roof of the car, looking across at one another. Dean vaguely recalled trying to talk Castiel into a weekend drive, just for fun, and they’d reached a stalemate just shy of climbing in the car to go.
“Dean’s trying to say this is a lovely present and we are very grateful,” Castiel said on their behalf.
“That’s not what I was trying to say,” Dean protested, because that was way too mushy for his taste. Bobby harrumphed and took a sip of his eggnog. Dean turned back to Sam and Zoë, “But, you know…” he shrugged and ticked his head toward Castiel in a ‘what he said’ gesture.
“You’re both welcome,” Sam said, and as some kind of Christmas miracle or something, he didn’t give Dean a hard time about maybe getting almost choked up looking at pictures of Mom and Dad.
Zoë was back at the tree in the next moment, unearthing another envelope. This one addressed to Dean in Castiel’s neat handwriting.
Dean closed the photo album and put it aside to take the envelope. Inside was a postcard of the Grand Canyon. Puzzled, Dean turned it over, but it was blank. Just a blank postcard. He looked over at Cas, “Um… thanks, Cas…”
“I thought we could send it to Sam and Zoë,” Castiel explained.
“Ooookay.”
“From the Grand Canyon.”
Dean’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline.
“After we drive there,” Castiel finished.
Dean’s jaw dropped. “Wait, are you serious? You mean you and me, in the Impala, driving to the Grand Canyon?”
“You said it was a place you always wanted to see, and I know you miss being on the road. I thought we could take a trip.”
“But, Cas… you hate riding in the car! I can barely take you to the grocery store.”
Castiel made a face. “That is something I must learn to overcome, it’s the primary means of transportation for humans, and I am one now. And I want to do this for you.”
Dean wanted to argue, because he knew Castiel didn’t like being cooped up in the car, but he was already thrumming with excitement. Back on the road, open highway before him, his baby purring in his hands. Fuck, he’d missed that more than anything about the hunting lifestyle. And Castiel was giving it to him, despite discomfort to himself.
“Jesus, man,” Dean said hoarsely, “now I feel bad… all I gave you was a fucking jacket.”
Castiel ran his fingers over the tan fabric in his lap. He smiled faintly. “You reminded me that I have been important to you, whether I was angel or human.”
Dean hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Geez, it’s just a coat.”
“Is it?” Castiel asked pointedly.
“Fine, it’s not,” Dean conceded, and he knew Sam was going to give him so much grief later about this. He looked down at the postcard again, now a promise of flying down the highway. “This is going to be awesome, I promise. You’ll love it, I’ll see to that.”
“Ugh,” Sam groaned, “come on, I don’t need to know about you two doing it in the backseat every time you stop somewhere.”
Castiel’s eyes widened and he looked over at Dean. Dean winked.
“Okay, how about the next present, Zoë?” Bobby interjected. Seems like even if Bobby was fine with Dean and Cas together didn’t mean he wanted to hear about their sexual escapades.
Zoë was suddenly a bundle of nerves. “Yeah, sure…” the only gift left (since they broke into Bobby’s whiskey Christmas eve so the former hunters could sit around talking about the old days) was the watch for Sam. Dean kind of felt bad for her… she obviously thought Sam was going to be disappointed. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but he honestly doubted she noticed as she went to the tree to fetch the lone box.
She crossed the room to hand it to Sam. He took it with a warm smile, “Thanks, honey.” He unwrapped it, opened the lid… and stared down into the box. His expression was unreadable. Zoë stood anxiously in front of the couch, biting her bottom lip. The room was dead quiet.
Dean frowned, confused. So maybe Zoë had been right to worry… Sam clearly expected more from his girlfriend.
Slowly, Sam looked up at Zoë. “Are you serious?”
Dean blinked. Shit, he sounded so intense. He was seconds away from getting up and smacking his brother over the head. Was he really going to have a temper tantrum and ruin Christmas over a watch?
Zoë barely nodded.
Suddenly, Sam exploded up off the couch. Dean flinched back, startled, wondering what had possessed his brother and already shifting to run down some salt and iron.
Then Sam wrapped Zoë up in a hug and lifted her off her feet.
Okay, so Sam was actually really happy about a watch. Dean was totally confused. Sam was laughing and swinging Zoë around. He’d left the watch box on the couch. Dean reached over and grabbed it; he had to see what timepiece had caused this much uproar.
It wasn’t a watch inside the watch box. It was a pregnancy test stick. Dean didn’t need the instructions on the box to know what a little ‘+’ meant.
Castiel was peering over Dean’s shoulder at the stick, and he started to reach up to touch it. Dean swatted his hand away, “Dude, don’t touch that, she peed on it.”
Castiel made a face. “Why would Zoë give Sam a present she had urinated on?”
“It’s a pregnancy test… it means Sam and Zoë are having a baby.” Then Dean looked meaningfully over at Castiel. Their eyes shared the secret they both kept. They knew one day Sam and Zoë would have a baby… a baby whose soul was the salvaged pieces of Castiel’s angelic grace. Kid would be real special, that was for sure.
“So you’re happy?” Zoë was asking Sam hurriedly.
Sam set her down at last. “Are you kidding? Of course I am!”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want a baby; we’ve been so careful, I don’t know how this could have happened.”
Dean and Cas exchanged a look. Not a condom in the universe that could guard against Heaven’s will.
Sam was wiping tears out of his eyes. “This is amazing… wow… I love you so much, Zoë.”
“I love you, too. I’m so glad you’re happy about this… because I know it wasn’t planned, but I really want this baby.”
Sam looked so overcome with glee he didn’t know what to do with himself. Then he was fumbling into his pocket. “I was going to do this later tonight, but…” he pulled the ring box from his pocket and dropped to one knee.
Zoë started to cry.
“Zoë Harrison… will you marry me?”
She launched herself at him, crying and laughing. Dean never actually heard a ‘yes’, but he didn’t figure one was really necessary to know the proposal had been accepted.
Bobby stood and went to congratulate the couple. Dean leaned back on the floor, arms braced behind him, and smiled at the whole damn room. Castiel glanced back at him, smiling. Dean grinned.
No matter how many Christmases they had as a family from here on out, it would be really hard to top this one.
Next
A/N: While the line “Maybe a mastiff or something” might seem like author bias, since I have a mastiff, it’s actually a nod to Harley.
It was, without question, the most normal Christmas morning either Winchester could remember. There was a twinkling tree, presents tucked underneath, the smell of gingerbread cookies filling the air, and gathered in the living room an actual family. Dean, Sam, Castiel, Zoë, and Bobby. It was so surreal that Dean found himself glancing more than once at the Devil’s traps under the windows, fully expecting something evil to bust in and ruin it all.
But nothing did, and Zoë jumped up off the couch and dove for a present (almost in a hurry to be the one to play Santa before anyone else claimed the job). She came up with Dean’s gift for Cas. “Here! Let’s start with this one.”
Dean and Castiel were sitting on the floor at the coffee table, sharing a cup of coffee and nibbling on fresh-baked gingerbread men. When Zoë held out the wrapped gift to Castiel, Dean put his cookie down and cleared his throat. Bobby, from his place in the recliner, watched with a glint of amusement in his eyes over the whole thing… as if Christmas was a big school play his surrogate sons were in.
Castiel accepted the gift from Zoë. “Thank you.” He looked toward Dean questioningly.
“Open it,” Dean urged, for the first time nervous that Cas would think it was stupid.
Castiel set to unwrapping the gift with more care than Dean had taken wrapping it. When he’d finally peeled away the paper, he froze and looked down at the gift in his lap.
“Show us what you got, Castiel,” Sam urged.
Castiel did. He held up a tan trench coat… eerily like the one he’d always worn as an angel.
Sam’s eyes widened.
Bobby guffawed.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s stupid, right? It’s been months since you had Jimmy’s, but when I picture you in my head, you’re always wearing one. I saw that in a second-hand store a while back and…” Dean stopped talking, fidgeting.
Castiel let the tan material pool in his lap. “It is not stupid… thank you, Dean.”
“Am I missing something?” Zoë asked.
“Back when Castiel was an angel,” Sam explained, “he always wore the same thing… suit, tie, and trench coat. Hell, even I’ve kind of missed seeing that old coat.”
“I have often wished I could have kept the coat I wore,” Castiel confessed.
“Yeah,” Dean chuckled, “then you wouldn’t have had to show up in the rain naked.”
“What?!” Zoë asked.
“Long story, I’ll tell you later,” Sam promised.
The next present Zoë picked was the envelope to her and Sam from Dean and Castiel. She handed it to Sam to open, “Here, Sam… this one’s for us from Dean and Cas.” When Bobby realized one couple had given the other couple a gift, a damnably normal and domestic thing to do, he gave the boys a knowing look.
Sam opened the envelope, pulled out the card inside, and his eyes brightened. “Oh, wow.”
“What is it?” Bobby asked.
“It’s an adoption voucher from the local animal shelter,” Dean explained. “Fees and everything are paid, all you have to do is go out there and pick out a dog.” Dean paused and grimaced. “Or a cat, I guess, but if you’re a cat person, Zoë, I don’t think I can make peace with that.”
“A dog?” Zoë asked, moving to look at the card.
“I know Sam’s idea of Heaven has dogs,” Dean said cryptically. Sam glanced over at him briefly, they shared a look, and then he was smiling. “What do you think, Zo?”
“What’s wrong with cats?” Castiel asked lowly, leaning toward Dean in the process.
“Dude, don’t tell me you’re a cat person… I totally couldn’t deal with that,” Dean countered.
“This is really thoughtful of you guys,” Zoë finally responded. “I love dogs. After my parents died, I actually wanted to get one, for protection amongst other things, but with school and work, I just didn’t have the time for one. But I’ll be graduating next semester, and with Sam here…”
“So we can get a dog?” Sam asked eagerly.
Zoë gave him a playful shove. “Yes, we can get a dog.”
Sam beamed. “This is awesome! Thanks, guys!”
“My brother, the world’s biggest eight-year-old girl. You watch, he’ll pick out something small with curly hair.”
He took it as a good sign when both Sam and Zoë made a face at that. There might still be hope it’d be a big, manly dog joining the family. Maybe a mastiff or something.
While Sam was fondling the adoption voucher with moist eyes (okay, maybe not, but that was the story Dean would always tell), Zoë went back to the tree and offered up a present to Dean and Cas. “Here… this is from us to the both of you.”
Dean accepted the gift, slid aside the plate of cookies to set it on the table, and tore into the gift. Castiel leaned in close for a better view. When the box lay open, Dean pulled out a photo album.
“Oh, that’s…” he started to say, kind of stumped, when Castiel reached out and opened the hard cover. Dean’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow.” Inside were family pictures. The few the Winchesters had, those the brothers had carried around their whole lives, ones recovered from John Winchester’s possessions, and the pictures from the box found by the woman living in their childhood Kansas home. Dean sat and slowly flipped through the pages. There weren’t many, which made the few they had all the more precious. Most families had volumes and volumes of photo albums… this was the only one Dean had held since he was four that had pictures of his own family. As far as he was concerned, that made it a fucking national treasure.
When they turned the last page with the pictures Dean recognized, he froze when he discovered still more pictures. Recent pictures. Ones with Dean and Castiel in the backyard, Sam and Zoë being all clingy and goofy, the Impala gleaming in the driveway… moments stolen during this new life where they were no longer hunters.
There was many blank pages left for more pictures to be added.
Dean finally looked up at Sam and Zoë. “This is…”
Castiel traced a finger over a picture of himself and Dean standing outside, Dean at the driver’s side of the Impala with Castiel at the passenger’s side, both of them leaning into the car and resting their chins on arms crossed over the roof of the car, looking across at one another. Dean vaguely recalled trying to talk Castiel into a weekend drive, just for fun, and they’d reached a stalemate just shy of climbing in the car to go.
“Dean’s trying to say this is a lovely present and we are very grateful,” Castiel said on their behalf.
“That’s not what I was trying to say,” Dean protested, because that was way too mushy for his taste. Bobby harrumphed and took a sip of his eggnog. Dean turned back to Sam and Zoë, “But, you know…” he shrugged and ticked his head toward Castiel in a ‘what he said’ gesture.
“You’re both welcome,” Sam said, and as some kind of Christmas miracle or something, he didn’t give Dean a hard time about maybe getting almost choked up looking at pictures of Mom and Dad.
Zoë was back at the tree in the next moment, unearthing another envelope. This one addressed to Dean in Castiel’s neat handwriting.
Dean closed the photo album and put it aside to take the envelope. Inside was a postcard of the Grand Canyon. Puzzled, Dean turned it over, but it was blank. Just a blank postcard. He looked over at Cas, “Um… thanks, Cas…”
“I thought we could send it to Sam and Zoë,” Castiel explained.
“Ooookay.”
“From the Grand Canyon.”
Dean’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline.
“After we drive there,” Castiel finished.
Dean’s jaw dropped. “Wait, are you serious? You mean you and me, in the Impala, driving to the Grand Canyon?”
“You said it was a place you always wanted to see, and I know you miss being on the road. I thought we could take a trip.”
“But, Cas… you hate riding in the car! I can barely take you to the grocery store.”
Castiel made a face. “That is something I must learn to overcome, it’s the primary means of transportation for humans, and I am one now. And I want to do this for you.”
Dean wanted to argue, because he knew Castiel didn’t like being cooped up in the car, but he was already thrumming with excitement. Back on the road, open highway before him, his baby purring in his hands. Fuck, he’d missed that more than anything about the hunting lifestyle. And Castiel was giving it to him, despite discomfort to himself.
“Jesus, man,” Dean said hoarsely, “now I feel bad… all I gave you was a fucking jacket.”
Castiel ran his fingers over the tan fabric in his lap. He smiled faintly. “You reminded me that I have been important to you, whether I was angel or human.”
Dean hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Geez, it’s just a coat.”
“Is it?” Castiel asked pointedly.
“Fine, it’s not,” Dean conceded, and he knew Sam was going to give him so much grief later about this. He looked down at the postcard again, now a promise of flying down the highway. “This is going to be awesome, I promise. You’ll love it, I’ll see to that.”
“Ugh,” Sam groaned, “come on, I don’t need to know about you two doing it in the backseat every time you stop somewhere.”
Castiel’s eyes widened and he looked over at Dean. Dean winked.
“Okay, how about the next present, Zoë?” Bobby interjected. Seems like even if Bobby was fine with Dean and Cas together didn’t mean he wanted to hear about their sexual escapades.
Zoë was suddenly a bundle of nerves. “Yeah, sure…” the only gift left (since they broke into Bobby’s whiskey Christmas eve so the former hunters could sit around talking about the old days) was the watch for Sam. Dean kind of felt bad for her… she obviously thought Sam was going to be disappointed. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but he honestly doubted she noticed as she went to the tree to fetch the lone box.
She crossed the room to hand it to Sam. He took it with a warm smile, “Thanks, honey.” He unwrapped it, opened the lid… and stared down into the box. His expression was unreadable. Zoë stood anxiously in front of the couch, biting her bottom lip. The room was dead quiet.
Dean frowned, confused. So maybe Zoë had been right to worry… Sam clearly expected more from his girlfriend.
Slowly, Sam looked up at Zoë. “Are you serious?”
Dean blinked. Shit, he sounded so intense. He was seconds away from getting up and smacking his brother over the head. Was he really going to have a temper tantrum and ruin Christmas over a watch?
Zoë barely nodded.
Suddenly, Sam exploded up off the couch. Dean flinched back, startled, wondering what had possessed his brother and already shifting to run down some salt and iron.
Then Sam wrapped Zoë up in a hug and lifted her off her feet.
Okay, so Sam was actually really happy about a watch. Dean was totally confused. Sam was laughing and swinging Zoë around. He’d left the watch box on the couch. Dean reached over and grabbed it; he had to see what timepiece had caused this much uproar.
It wasn’t a watch inside the watch box. It was a pregnancy test stick. Dean didn’t need the instructions on the box to know what a little ‘+’ meant.
Castiel was peering over Dean’s shoulder at the stick, and he started to reach up to touch it. Dean swatted his hand away, “Dude, don’t touch that, she peed on it.”
Castiel made a face. “Why would Zoë give Sam a present she had urinated on?”
“It’s a pregnancy test… it means Sam and Zoë are having a baby.” Then Dean looked meaningfully over at Castiel. Their eyes shared the secret they both kept. They knew one day Sam and Zoë would have a baby… a baby whose soul was the salvaged pieces of Castiel’s angelic grace. Kid would be real special, that was for sure.
“So you’re happy?” Zoë was asking Sam hurriedly.
Sam set her down at last. “Are you kidding? Of course I am!”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want a baby; we’ve been so careful, I don’t know how this could have happened.”
Dean and Cas exchanged a look. Not a condom in the universe that could guard against Heaven’s will.
Sam was wiping tears out of his eyes. “This is amazing… wow… I love you so much, Zoë.”
“I love you, too. I’m so glad you’re happy about this… because I know it wasn’t planned, but I really want this baby.”
Sam looked so overcome with glee he didn’t know what to do with himself. Then he was fumbling into his pocket. “I was going to do this later tonight, but…” he pulled the ring box from his pocket and dropped to one knee.
Zoë started to cry.
“Zoë Harrison… will you marry me?”
She launched herself at him, crying and laughing. Dean never actually heard a ‘yes’, but he didn’t figure one was really necessary to know the proposal had been accepted.
Bobby stood and went to congratulate the couple. Dean leaned back on the floor, arms braced behind him, and smiled at the whole damn room. Castiel glanced back at him, smiling. Dean grinned.
No matter how many Christmases they had as a family from here on out, it would be really hard to top this one.
Next
A/N: While the line “Maybe a mastiff or something” might seem like author bias, since I have a mastiff, it’s actually a nod to Harley.