Fic: Seven Days of Christmas
Title: Seven Days of Christmas
Genre: Gen, PG
Word count: ~1800
Summary: Every year, Sam and Dean have a competition to see who can get each other the lamest Christmas present. One gift per day, between Christmas and New Year. Written for the Secret Satan Christmas exchange at spn_bigpretzel.
Art By mandraco
A slow grin crept over Sam’s face as he re-read the woman’s email. “Dude, this might be the best present you’ve ever given me.” He clicked the link to email her back, accepting her offer. Who knew someone would pay $400 for a creepy doll with a porcelain head and dead zombie eyes from 1978? He straightened her pink party dress and turned her around so she wasn’t looking at him. It was okay. As soon as the post started back up, he wouldn’t have to live in fear of his Christmas present coming alive and murdering him in the night.
Really, the best bit was that Dean had been seen in public buying the doll.
Dean pouted and looked down at the book his brother had given him. It was a well read paperback with a pair of blonde twins with eighties hair glaring at each other on the front. The words ‘this book belongs to Stacey Cooper’ were inscribed inside the front cover in the shaky joined-up writing of a girl in her early teens. Just looking at the cover made him want to stab himself in the eye with a fork.
“You have to read it, man,” Sam laughed. “Them’s the rules.”
Dean glared at his brother and opened the book. Twenty minutes later, he’d discovered it was one of the most entertainingly bad things he’d ever read, and he kind of wanted to read the next adventure of Jessica Wakefield, the manipulative sociopath, and her self-righteous, interfering twin Elizabeth.
He got back at Sam by reading it out loud while they ate a Christmas dinner of store-roasted chicken they’d bought the day before and some peas and carrots that Sam had insisted on.
Sam gritted his teeth as his antlers caught in the snarled fingers of the bare tree outside the motel laundry. Why had he decided they needed the stupid rule that if they received an item of clothing as a gift, they weren’t allowed to remove them all day? Oh, that’s right, because he was stupid. ‘Jingle Bells’ rang out tinnily as the tree pressed in the button.
“Need some help?” A blonde woman about his age smiled at him, her eyes twinkling.
Sam blushed and did his best to nod in spite of his restricted ability to move his head. She upended her empty laundry basket and stood on it, reaching up so that her breasts clad in a soft, fuzzy green sweater almost brushed his face as she untangled his antlers.
e accepted her offer of hot cocoa while they waited for their laundry.
What was taking Sam so long? Dean wondered. He’d left the room with the laundry hours ago. He shrugged to himself and turned a page in his book. He couldn’t quite get up the energy to go looking for him. His new sweater was the warmest, snuggliest, most comfortable sweater ever, and he was never taking it off.
If Sam thought Dean couldn’t pull off a green woolly jumper with red bobbles and a reindeer on the front, he was sorely mistaken.
Sam frowned in concentration as he poked the pointed needle through the loop of pale pink wool on his other needle, wound the wool around, and pulled it through. Then again. And again. And again. The needles were too small, and it made his hands feel big and clumsy, but it was good for his dexterity, and the quiet, slow click of the needles was relaxing. Anyway, they might need this scarf if the snow kept up.
The wind was howling, and the snow was like a blanket of white against the window. Sam’s needles clicked.
Dean rolled up the sleeves of his reindeer jumper. He didn’t want to get anything on it, because then he’d have to take it off to wash it, and he was seriously never taking it off. It was like wearing a nest of warmth.
He grabbed about ten potatoes from the sack Sam had given him and started washing them. Better cook them before the storm took out the power, and they couldn’t cook anything. He cut crosses in the tops and sprinkled them with salt before putting them in the mini-oven.
Sam didn’t seem to understand the point of the gift exchange. The whole point was to give each other lame things, not things that were both useful and delicious. For some reason, he seemed to have forgotten that baked potatoes were pretty much the best things ever.
The power had gone out in the night and the room was freezing. The wind was still howling outside. Dean used a flashlight to find the candles they usually reserved for spell work, and lit them, setting them on the table. He created a cocoon out of his bedspread and sat at the table to unwrap the newspaper-covered box labelled ‘Dean’ that sat there.
This puzzle has missing pieces, it said in thick black marker across the face of the ginger kitten on the lid of the box. Dean tipped the pieces out on the table and set to work.
He threw a potato at Sam. “Stop lazing around and help me out with this, will you.”
Sam got up. Truth be told, he liked jigsaw puzzles, and he didn’t want to miss Dean getting furious because it wouldn’t fit together right.
“Don’t forget to open your present,” Dean said, and slid something book-shaped across the table to him.
“Oh, funny, Dean. I’m a girl. Ha ha.” Sam flipped through the pages of the Girl Scout manual. Huh. It had a section showing how to change balls of wool when you were knitting. At the rate he was going with his scarf, he might actually need to know that sometime in the next month. It had diagrams and everything.
“Okay, this pile’s for side pieces, and all these are definitely bits of kitten,” Dean gestured to the groups of puzzle pieces. “Get sorting.”
The wind and snow had died down, but there were still drifts against the door and frost on the windows. The power had come back on sometime in the night, and it was blissfully warm in the room.
Surprisingly, there were also still two people alive in the room. Under ordinary circumstances, being stuck in a room with Dean when there was no power and no way out would result in bloodshed. After all, Dean was not exactly known for his enjoyment of sitting around doing nothing. Usually, over the course of a day trapped somewhere with nothing to do, Dean would become annoying, bugging Sam to entertain him. Then he’d get whiny. And then he’d get grouchy and irritable for no reason. It was only through Sam’s sweet nature and unending patience that he managed to hold back from killing Dean.
It had gone differently yesterday, though. Sam had misjudged Dean’s reaction to the jigsaw puzzle. Dean’s competitive nature had come out as he’d set about beating the jigsaw, and it had overcome his tendency to get bored quickly. Sam had discovered that Dean had the longest attention span of anyone in the world ever when he became determined to ‘win’. Sam had helped, and it had actually been kind of fun.
Dean’s whoop and the expression of pure joy on his face when he’d pressed in the last piece was enough to make Sam not mind that the present he’d received was definitely lamer than the present he’d given that day (although it undeniably had useful bits in it).
Sam carried the hot coffee over to the table where Dean sat, admiring the picture of the kitten. It was complete except for a missing eye and half a ball of red yarn it was playing with. He handed a cup to Dean and sat down, pulling Dean’s present of the day out of his pocket.
“A felt tip!” Dean exclaimed, uncapping it and reaching over to draw on Sam’s face. His face fell. “It doesn’t work.”
Sam laughed.
He wasn’t laughing later, when he was sitting on his bed doing the crossword in the old section of newspaper Dean had given him, and Dean was shooting spitballs at him through the empty tube of the pen.
They headed out on the road again, on their way to Bobby’s for New Year’s. The plan had been to get there by Christmas, but the job had taken longer than expected.
They stopped at a diner for lunch and swapped gifts.
“I can’t believe you’re still wearing that,” Sam said.
Dean grinned widely at him. “This is the best present ever.” He ran his hands up and down the soft sleeves of his Christmas sweater. “Oh, hi ma’am. Yes, my brother would like his coffee served in his favourite mug.” He handed Sam’s new Quiltmakers’ Association of America mug over to the pleasantly plump waitress and gave her his best smile.
“Are you a member?” She asked.
Sam glowered at Dean. “Yes, I just love quilts.”
“It’s a dying art,” the waitress said, “You know, it’s so great to finally meet another member. Don’t worry about paying for that, it’s on me.”
Sam smirked at Dean’s fading grin and handed over his present. “You have to listen to it. That’s the rules.”
Unfortunately, Sam had failed to account for the fact that when Dean listened to it in the Impala, Sam would have to listen to it too. After an afternoon of listening to NSync’s Christmas album, he was cursing himself thoroughly.
They reached Bobby’s well after dark. Bobby was happy to see them. Christmas alone couldn’t have been fun, despite Bobby’s shrugging it off like it was no big deal.
Dean thought he was secretly overjoyed with the flower-patterned apron and matching tablecloth they’d given him, even though he’d growled and called them idjits.
They sat down with beers in the living room to await midnight, and the traditional handing over of the last gift.
As the ball dropped on the TV, Dean handed over the lame-ass book on plant identification he’d seen Sam looking at in the bookstore, and watched Sam’s eyes widen and mouth involuntarily stretch into a smile before he could hide it.
Sam rolled his eyes to keep up appearances. “Lame,” he said, and watched as Dean ripped the paper off his present.
“Who even watches this anyway?” Dean asked, clutching the box set of DVDs with poorly concealed excitement. “It’s the lamest thing ever. I mean, who cares if Dr Sexy ends up with Dr Piccolo or not.”
“I’m just gonna head to bed, now,” Sam said, nearly tripping over the coffee table as he stood up, reading the section on poisonous herbs as he went.
“Yeah, me too,” said Dean, picking up his laptop and DVDs, and heading downstairs to the cot in the panic room, where no one would disturb him.
“Idjits,” said Bobby.
The End
Genre: Gen, PG
Word count: ~1800
Summary: Every year, Sam and Dean have a competition to see who can get each other the lamest Christmas present. One gift per day, between Christmas and New Year. Written for the Secret Satan Christmas exchange at spn_bigpretzel.
Art By mandraco
A slow grin crept over Sam’s face as he re-read the woman’s email. “Dude, this might be the best present you’ve ever given me.” He clicked the link to email her back, accepting her offer. Who knew someone would pay $400 for a creepy doll with a porcelain head and dead zombie eyes from 1978? He straightened her pink party dress and turned her around so she wasn’t looking at him. It was okay. As soon as the post started back up, he wouldn’t have to live in fear of his Christmas present coming alive and murdering him in the night.
Really, the best bit was that Dean had been seen in public buying the doll.
Dean pouted and looked down at the book his brother had given him. It was a well read paperback with a pair of blonde twins with eighties hair glaring at each other on the front. The words ‘this book belongs to Stacey Cooper’ were inscribed inside the front cover in the shaky joined-up writing of a girl in her early teens. Just looking at the cover made him want to stab himself in the eye with a fork.
“You have to read it, man,” Sam laughed. “Them’s the rules.”
Dean glared at his brother and opened the book. Twenty minutes later, he’d discovered it was one of the most entertainingly bad things he’d ever read, and he kind of wanted to read the next adventure of Jessica Wakefield, the manipulative sociopath, and her self-righteous, interfering twin Elizabeth.
He got back at Sam by reading it out loud while they ate a Christmas dinner of store-roasted chicken they’d bought the day before and some peas and carrots that Sam had insisted on.
Sam gritted his teeth as his antlers caught in the snarled fingers of the bare tree outside the motel laundry. Why had he decided they needed the stupid rule that if they received an item of clothing as a gift, they weren’t allowed to remove them all day? Oh, that’s right, because he was stupid. ‘Jingle Bells’ rang out tinnily as the tree pressed in the button.
“Need some help?” A blonde woman about his age smiled at him, her eyes twinkling.
Sam blushed and did his best to nod in spite of his restricted ability to move his head. She upended her empty laundry basket and stood on it, reaching up so that her breasts clad in a soft, fuzzy green sweater almost brushed his face as she untangled his antlers.
e accepted her offer of hot cocoa while they waited for their laundry.
What was taking Sam so long? Dean wondered. He’d left the room with the laundry hours ago. He shrugged to himself and turned a page in his book. He couldn’t quite get up the energy to go looking for him. His new sweater was the warmest, snuggliest, most comfortable sweater ever, and he was never taking it off.
If Sam thought Dean couldn’t pull off a green woolly jumper with red bobbles and a reindeer on the front, he was sorely mistaken.
Sam frowned in concentration as he poked the pointed needle through the loop of pale pink wool on his other needle, wound the wool around, and pulled it through. Then again. And again. And again. The needles were too small, and it made his hands feel big and clumsy, but it was good for his dexterity, and the quiet, slow click of the needles was relaxing. Anyway, they might need this scarf if the snow kept up.
The wind was howling, and the snow was like a blanket of white against the window. Sam’s needles clicked.
Dean rolled up the sleeves of his reindeer jumper. He didn’t want to get anything on it, because then he’d have to take it off to wash it, and he was seriously never taking it off. It was like wearing a nest of warmth.
He grabbed about ten potatoes from the sack Sam had given him and started washing them. Better cook them before the storm took out the power, and they couldn’t cook anything. He cut crosses in the tops and sprinkled them with salt before putting them in the mini-oven.
Sam didn’t seem to understand the point of the gift exchange. The whole point was to give each other lame things, not things that were both useful and delicious. For some reason, he seemed to have forgotten that baked potatoes were pretty much the best things ever.
The power had gone out in the night and the room was freezing. The wind was still howling outside. Dean used a flashlight to find the candles they usually reserved for spell work, and lit them, setting them on the table. He created a cocoon out of his bedspread and sat at the table to unwrap the newspaper-covered box labelled ‘Dean’ that sat there.
This puzzle has missing pieces, it said in thick black marker across the face of the ginger kitten on the lid of the box. Dean tipped the pieces out on the table and set to work.
He threw a potato at Sam. “Stop lazing around and help me out with this, will you.”
Sam got up. Truth be told, he liked jigsaw puzzles, and he didn’t want to miss Dean getting furious because it wouldn’t fit together right.
“Don’t forget to open your present,” Dean said, and slid something book-shaped across the table to him.
“Oh, funny, Dean. I’m a girl. Ha ha.” Sam flipped through the pages of the Girl Scout manual. Huh. It had a section showing how to change balls of wool when you were knitting. At the rate he was going with his scarf, he might actually need to know that sometime in the next month. It had diagrams and everything.
“Okay, this pile’s for side pieces, and all these are definitely bits of kitten,” Dean gestured to the groups of puzzle pieces. “Get sorting.”
The wind and snow had died down, but there were still drifts against the door and frost on the windows. The power had come back on sometime in the night, and it was blissfully warm in the room.
Surprisingly, there were also still two people alive in the room. Under ordinary circumstances, being stuck in a room with Dean when there was no power and no way out would result in bloodshed. After all, Dean was not exactly known for his enjoyment of sitting around doing nothing. Usually, over the course of a day trapped somewhere with nothing to do, Dean would become annoying, bugging Sam to entertain him. Then he’d get whiny. And then he’d get grouchy and irritable for no reason. It was only through Sam’s sweet nature and unending patience that he managed to hold back from killing Dean.
It had gone differently yesterday, though. Sam had misjudged Dean’s reaction to the jigsaw puzzle. Dean’s competitive nature had come out as he’d set about beating the jigsaw, and it had overcome his tendency to get bored quickly. Sam had discovered that Dean had the longest attention span of anyone in the world ever when he became determined to ‘win’. Sam had helped, and it had actually been kind of fun.
Dean’s whoop and the expression of pure joy on his face when he’d pressed in the last piece was enough to make Sam not mind that the present he’d received was definitely lamer than the present he’d given that day (although it undeniably had useful bits in it).
Sam carried the hot coffee over to the table where Dean sat, admiring the picture of the kitten. It was complete except for a missing eye and half a ball of red yarn it was playing with. He handed a cup to Dean and sat down, pulling Dean’s present of the day out of his pocket.
“A felt tip!” Dean exclaimed, uncapping it and reaching over to draw on Sam’s face. His face fell. “It doesn’t work.”
Sam laughed.
He wasn’t laughing later, when he was sitting on his bed doing the crossword in the old section of newspaper Dean had given him, and Dean was shooting spitballs at him through the empty tube of the pen.
They headed out on the road again, on their way to Bobby’s for New Year’s. The plan had been to get there by Christmas, but the job had taken longer than expected.
They stopped at a diner for lunch and swapped gifts.
“I can’t believe you’re still wearing that,” Sam said.
Dean grinned widely at him. “This is the best present ever.” He ran his hands up and down the soft sleeves of his Christmas sweater. “Oh, hi ma’am. Yes, my brother would like his coffee served in his favourite mug.” He handed Sam’s new Quiltmakers’ Association of America mug over to the pleasantly plump waitress and gave her his best smile.
“Are you a member?” She asked.
Sam glowered at Dean. “Yes, I just love quilts.”
“It’s a dying art,” the waitress said, “You know, it’s so great to finally meet another member. Don’t worry about paying for that, it’s on me.”
Sam smirked at Dean’s fading grin and handed over his present. “You have to listen to it. That’s the rules.”
Unfortunately, Sam had failed to account for the fact that when Dean listened to it in the Impala, Sam would have to listen to it too. After an afternoon of listening to NSync’s Christmas album, he was cursing himself thoroughly.
They reached Bobby’s well after dark. Bobby was happy to see them. Christmas alone couldn’t have been fun, despite Bobby’s shrugging it off like it was no big deal.
Dean thought he was secretly overjoyed with the flower-patterned apron and matching tablecloth they’d given him, even though he’d growled and called them idjits.
They sat down with beers in the living room to await midnight, and the traditional handing over of the last gift.
As the ball dropped on the TV, Dean handed over the lame-ass book on plant identification he’d seen Sam looking at in the bookstore, and watched Sam’s eyes widen and mouth involuntarily stretch into a smile before he could hide it.
Sam rolled his eyes to keep up appearances. “Lame,” he said, and watched as Dean ripped the paper off his present.
“Who even watches this anyway?” Dean asked, clutching the box set of DVDs with poorly concealed excitement. “It’s the lamest thing ever. I mean, who cares if Dr Sexy ends up with Dr Piccolo or not.”
“I’m just gonna head to bed, now,” Sam said, nearly tripping over the coffee table as he stood up, reading the section on poisonous herbs as he went.
“Yeah, me too,” said Dean, picking up his laptop and DVDs, and heading downstairs to the cot in the panic room, where no one would disturb him.
“Idjits,” said Bobby.
The End