SPN: "The First Noel"
Category: Supernatural, "This Christmas Day" 'verse.
Title: The First Noel (FFN/AO3)
Word Count: 8000
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: Dean's first Christmas with Marcy means confronting a brand-new enemy: Finding a gift.
So, this was not the Christmas story I originally planned on posting this year, and as a result, some of the background may sound confusing. All you really need to know (and possibly look forward to reading) is that, upon receiving the news that he was getting a sister-in-law, Sam reacted...poorly. Very poorly. I promise the details will get told eventually.
"People, we are not your trash can," Dean muttered, tossing another stained, ragged T-shirt into the rapidly rising discard pile beside his chair. Anita's shop wasn't technically a charity-she had only a very loose association with a couple of other shops that were-but apparently, some people couldn't tell the difference. Nobody got a tax break for donating things here, but sometimes, people were so vested in getting the shit out of their house that they just didn't care.
Of course, they didn't bother checking to see if the stuff was in sellable condition, either. He hated to think how bad the crap at Goodwill or the Salvation Army had to be.
Anita came in. She picked up the discard pile and dumped it into the "Mindy bin." The friend of hers who did mending on clothes that weren't too far gone did something with all that stuff, and what Mindy didn't use, she got rid of, saving Anita the time and hassle. "Everybody goes shopping for new stuff this time of year," she said when he shot her a confused look; she was supposed to be minding the register. "Nobody wants used stuff, except for the handful looking for antiques. So it's going to be very slow for the next couple of weeks. After Christmas, though, people who can't get refunds or need to clean out shelf space, and people who swore they'd declutter the house for their resolution, they'll be packing the place."
"No asking for New Year's off, huh?"
"More or less." She pulled out the rickety chair that lived back here because it was too battered to sell and lowered herself carefully into it so that the bad leg didn't break again. "So what are you getting Marcy for Christmas?"
Dean looked up from the jeans he was trying to untangle. "Huh?"
"Your fiancée. Remember her? What are you getting her for Christmas?"
Dean blinked.
Son of a-
His expression must have betrayed him, because Anita laughed. "You completely forgot, didn't you?"
"I didn't- I mean-"
He hadn't forgotten, because it hadn't occurred to him. It just honestly had never occurred to him. Christmas hadn't meant anything to the Winchesters since that year Sam found out what Dad really did. That had turned Sammy into a full-on Grinch for years, and without Dean reminding him, the only reason Dad even noticed the difference on the calendar was because the winter solstice tended to bring out a whole different class of monsters. Dean hadn't been terribly upset with it, to be honest; fewer attempts at celebration meant fewer things to remind him of those hazy holidays before the fire.
That first year after Jessica died, while he and Sam were searching for Dad, Dean had tried to do something special for the holidays, only to have it backfire and send Sam on a grief-fueled drinking binge, because-as Dean found out later-Sam had been planning a Christmas proposal. The next year, it had been Sam trying to hold him together, and had ended with black eyes all around and Bobby kicking them out of the house. After that, they'd just kind of agreed to not even try. Presents had never entered the equation, of course; they didn't have the spare money or any place to keep anything that wasn't hunting-related.
And Dean couldn't think of a single situation in which he'd ever needed to buy a woman a present. Drinks didn't count.
I am so fucked.
There was another issue, too: Money. Anita was pretty generous-not a lot of bosses would let an employee have free choice of donated clothes, then insist he take the good ones, and if he'd gotten his own place instead of moving in with Marcy, Anita would have insisted on a couple of runs through housewares and furniture-but his actual pay was barely above minimum wage. Most of it went to groceries, his share of the gas for Bruce, and his new, legitimate cell phone. He'd trashed the last of the scammed cards some time ago. He had a bank account now, an appeasement gesture after Sam's overreaction to the engagement, but he hadn't touched it; unless Sam had sent him money, the way he had while Dean was in rehab, there was nothing more in it than the initial deposit, and that had been absurdly low.
He couldn't ask Marcy for money to buy her a present. Even he knew that that would just be tacky.
Not to mention, with her money.... Anything she wanted, she had. Anything she didn't have, she could get. Even with borrowed money, what the hell could he buy that she didn't already have? He couldn't even offer to do an oil change on Bruce; he didn't have the supplies or the space, and besides, she was meticulous about keeping the car up already. She kinda had to, since Third was very possessive about the cars he rebuilt.
"I-um-I'm still thinking about it," he finally managed. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. After tomorrow, he'd need a new excuse, but right now, it wasn't Thanksgiving yet.
"Uh-huh." Anita sounded completely unconvinced. "Tell you what. While we're slow, look through the jewelry case. I'll let you-"
"Anita!"
"What?"
"Is this going to be a thing? I mean, are you going to be nagging me till Christmas?"
"Only if I have to," she said cheerily. "You have to get her something, Dean. Even if you ask her and she says you don't. Trust me. Nobody means it when they say 'you don't have to get me anything.'"
"I'm not that stupid," he said, stung.
"You'd be surprised how many men can't figure that out," she replied. "My father did that one year. I nearly wound up an orphan." He snorted. "You didn't even think about presents."
"No." He was now, though. The next few weeks were going to be painful.
She gave him a look. "When's Marcy's birthday?"
"August. It was right after we met. Why?"
"I just want to make sure you don't forget that too."
"Anita!"
Thankfully, the chimes on the front door went off, and Anita dashed for the front of the store to keep an eye on the customers.
Dean sagged back into his chair. Presents.
Wasn't normal life was supposed to have fewer nightmares?
***
Dean pushed open the door, blinked, then double-checked. Nope, right number. He hadn't somehow accidentally gone into Mrs. Reilly's apartment without being greeted by screams and Buttercup.
Still, he wasn't entirely sure he was in the right place. There was loud Christmas music playing-that rock-classical band with the funny name that had all those Christmas albums-and it looked like the North Pole had exploded. The kitchen table now had a seasonal tablecloth and centerpiece, and there were Christmasy potholders hanging on the drawer handles, and fucking chair covers. There were garlands on the balcony and above the doors and windows, and a very large Christmas tree was now occupying a hefty hunk of the living room. He glanced at the oven, but it was off, which meant that the powerful scent of baking sugar cookies currently warring with the smell of fresh evergreen must be candle-related.
"Marcy?" he called, setting his keys on the table by the door. The ceramic seashell he normally used had been replaced by a ratty-looking wooden sleigh pulled by a red Styrofoam reindeer with gold tinsel harness. She had to be responsible for this. Why would anybody else break in and deck their halls? And the doors and the balcony and the living room and the kitchen and-he checked-the bathroom? He hoped she hadn't gone berserk in their bedroom and bathroom, because if random objects started singing Christmas carols every time he needed to pee-
"Dean?" Marcy stuck her head out of the second bedroom. She was wearing a tree's worth of light strings looped around her shoulders and had a ring of plastic holly set in her hair like a crown. "You're home early."
"Store was dead. What the-"
"Testing lights." She gave him a sheepish grin. "I have a weakness for Christmas lights."
Dean deliberately turned and looked at the Christmas tree, which possibly had more lights than needles. No wonder the room smelled like pine; that many lights had to be baking the damn tree. How many times a day were they going to have to water that thing? "You don't say. Are you even going to be able to get ornaments on that?"
"Of course. I haven't even gotten the icicles on it yet."
"The tinsel?"
"No, the icicle lights. This is what I get for letting Tori help me pack things up last year. I can't find shit." She pulled the strings of lights over her head and tossed them on the back of the couch. "Does this make you uncomfortable?"
"No, I just wasn't expecting Santa to explode." She made a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. "Besides, it's your house."
Her eyes went dark. "No, it's our house," she corrected sharply. She took the holly out of her hair and wrapped it around the base of the statue of the Virgin that lived above the TV. "And if you have a problem, tell me. Or any traditions you want to add."
"What, you want to prop up a shotgun in the corner and put some tinsel on it? We don't have any traditions."
"None?"
Oh, shit. Now he was getting the Reynolds version of the sad eyes. Maybe he shouldn't hope that someday she and Sam would manage to get along; Dean wasn't sure he could handle puppy eyes in stereo. "Don't," he said, hoping to head it off. "It- It was what it was, that's all. Aren't you supposed to do this on Friday?"
"I like to have everything ready to go on Thursday night. I want this place lit up with the Christmas spirit when we come back from Mama's." She turned down the stereo. "Soon as I find the damn timers, at least," she added, almost in an undertone.
Right. Lunch-dammit, dinner tomorrow at Anne and Third's, with the entire clan in attendance; not just the immediate family, but also any of the cousins who didn't have any other place to go, not to mention whatever friends and strays got dragged in by overzealous Reynoldses. He wondered how many turkeys it took to feed the whole family. Probably a whole flock, even if they did supplement with a stray pig or two. "So we go eat, come home to a magnificent light show-" She laughed. "-and then what? Christmas-wise, I mean?"
Okay, so it wasn't his best segue, but he couldn't just come out and say, Hey, Marcy, Anita said I have to get you a present, do I really?
"You mean, what our holiday plans are?"
"I guess. I mean, I was wondering if we did, what with the Twelve Tribes and all-"
"Nine," she corrected absently. "It- I'm sorry, Dean, it's just been so long since I had to do the two people thing.... I guess this is a downside of the whole fast relationship thing, huh?" He chuckled. "Give me a minute." She went back into the spare room and came out with a huge plastic tote of lights. She plugged in an extension cord and tested the lights as she talked. "In terms of the holiday itself- I go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. And Mama has dinner over there on Christmas Day. We usually wind up eating a little late, around two or three, to accommodate all the other families and the kids opening Santa presents and the ones who prefer morning Mass to midnight. Granny used to do a thing at her place, but since Junior died, she's just been bringing the punch to Mama's. Oh, and we draw names tomorrow for presents, but we do it kinda weird because there's so many of us. I'd explain, but that's Dad's job and he's really looking forward to the fresh meat this year."
"Oh, great." So that was another gift he had to get. Not to mention the joy of sitting through one of Third's "explanations." At least this one should be easier to understand than the family tree.
"We have a money limit over there, if that's what you're worried about."
Yeah, but the Reynolds idea of a money limit was probably a lot higher than his.
"And I'll help you, whoever you get. Especially if you get Sean or something. My family's hard to shop for."
No shit.
She dragged a very long set of lights to the tree and started trying to wrap them around it. Careful not to roll over anything, he wheeled over to hold the free end for her. "Thanks. Are you fishing around for gift ideas for me?"
"Um. Maybe."
Marcy chuckled. "Subtle you are not."
"I can do subtle!"
"Sure you can. That's why you locked me in the bathroom instead of just telling me the plane would crash."
"That was subtle. You should have seen my other plans."
"Right." Marcy reached down and gave the boot on his broken ankle a solid thunk, and he stuck his tongue out at her. They were nothing if not mature. "Well, I won't tell you that whatever you get me will be perfect, because we both know that's a load of shit. But I promise not to say that to your face. I only request that it not be a weapon and not be wedding related."
That...didn't really help. He didn't know where to start with the damn wedding stuff to begin with; he was just obeying orders. He'd already caught Marcy on the phone with Sarah twice, which was two more times than he was comfortable with.
He wished he'd thought of a weapon before she'd said that, though. Weapons he knew, and she could use a good hunting knife. Everybody needed a good hunting knife.
"If you don't want to do presents-" She stretched to toss the last loop of the string of lights over the top of the tree. He started to get up to help, but the boot caught on one of the footrests, reminding him that he wasn't supposed to be doing that much standing anyway. "-we don't have to."
There was something about the way she said that-disappointment, maybe? Or plotting? Did she already have a gift for him? "No, that's not what I meant," he said quickly. "It's just- We were never any good at Christmas."
"You'll be fine." Her eyes took on a sudden twinkle, and she headed for the coat closet.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked as she started to rummage. "Tell me there's not more decorations in there."
"Paying homage to my fiancé's traditions," she said, emerging with an old, battered rifle. It looked like an antique, not a working weapon. "Proving that even a Winchester can manage a Christmas."
"Where'd that come from?"
"My great-grandfather. Mama's side. Somehow, I wound up with it after Firth got hurt, I don't know how. And no, it doesn't work, but it's the only gun in the house big enough to decorate." She reached into a box and pulled out a length of silvery garland. "Now," she said, standing there with a gun in one hand and tinsel in the other, looking like the Spirit of Christmas Murder, "is it just tinsel, or tinsel and lights?"
"Marcy!"
"Lights, then?"
He gave up. "You are insane, woman."
She grinned, and kissed him. "Wait till you see the stocking Court made for you."
"Oh, God," he groaned, and she laughed.
***
Black Friday wasn't all that black in the store. Anita must have been right about people only buying new stuff.
Nobody came in all afternoon. Nobody. Not even somebody looking for "vintage" crap. Anita had a dentist's appointment, so it was just Dean and his boredom. No wonder he and Anita were the only ones scheduled today.
There hadn't even been enough customers to justify straightening the shelves. Anita had finished sorting the last of the week's donations and consignments before she left. None of the books on the shelves looked remotely interesting-and frankly, most of them were bodice-ripper romances. Dean would shoot himself before risking being caught with one of those, even if only by a customer.
He had sneaked a few of Marcy's catalogs out of the stack by the simple method of stuffing a handful into the pocket on the back of his chair last night while she was making finicky adjustments to the balcony lights, but flipping through them provided absolutely no hints-nothing circled, no dog-eared pages to remember for later, no Post-Its or napkins or candy wrappers as makeshift bookmarks. He wasn't even sure she got these because she actually liked the things in them. She didn't look at them as much as she once had, she'd said, since now she wasn't eating meals alone; they'd mainly been something to read while she ate. He probably looked at them more than she did, at least when she was out of town.
A quick, half-whispered conference with Nick, Andy, and David during the festivities yesterday hadn't yielded any ideas. Firth would probably have thoughts on the matter, but Dean wasn't sure Firth would keep quiet. He didn't know Mike all that well yet, and he didn't trust the sisters not to laugh at him. Anne would give him what he privately called the Mama Look, the one that made him feel an inch tall and really stupid, and probably ask Marcy if the wedding should be cancelled. Third would let it slip to the whole family within a week, and the last thing Dean needed was to be accosted by Aunt Myrtle and her medieval insistence that all any woman wanted was kitchenware.
He'd even called Bobby this morning, hoping for some useful advice. That got him five solid minutes-he timed it-of braying laughter before Bobby finally managed to wheeze, "Dean, just ask her what she wants."
Dean hadn't bothered calling Sam, since he knew what that would get him. Sam would say that if he didn't even know what to buy a woman for Christmas, he had no business marrying her.
Maybe Sam was right. Maybe it just was too soon. Maybe he needed more time to get used to normal.
"No," he said, and didn't even realize he'd said it aloud until the stupid voice-activated Santa next to the cash register started dancing.
He'd fought his own brother over getting married, like he and Sam hadn't fought over anything, not even Stanford or Dad or hunting. This was a fucking present. If another Winchester wasn't going to get between Dean and Marcy, a damn gift wasn't. This-this was just another hunt, really. And every monster had a weakness, you just had to find it.
So. Start with the obvious. What did Marcy like? Him. Bruce. Bad hair metal.
But she already had a him, and a Bruce, and he was not going to scour the Internet for obscure hair metal on the off chance that she'd like it and didn't already own it. She had all eight of Warrant's albums, for crying out loud, plus three compilations and a live album, and he'd thought they'd broken up after two.
She liked church. He could offer to go to Christmas Mass, maybe?
No. Marcy would only want him there if he wanted to be there, and she knew damn well the last thing he wanted was to sit in a crowded, incense-smoke-filled church in the middle of the damn night and listen to them praise somebody who, if existent, had to be the biggest asshole in the universe. She'd welcome him if he ever had a change of heart, but to go just to go, like some kind of sightseeing trip.... She wasn't like that. She might even take it as an insult.
Girl stuff? Fuck, where did he even start with what he didn't know about that?
This was impossible. Killing a demon had been easier.
He was debating the merits of making fun of an antique National Geographic with a feature on the Soviet Union when the reflection off a passing car struck the jewelry case.
Anita had said he could look through it. Some of those pieces were real antiques, not cheap costume jewelry. Probably still nothing he could afford, unless Anita was very generous with a payment plan, but it couldn't hurt to look. Maybe he'd get lucky.
Or not. Marcy already had plenty of fancy pins-nearly a whole box full, just of those. Fancy hair thingies, too, including some she'd inherited. Rings were out; anything he got her now would be interpreted by everybody else as an engagement ring, and they'd decided against that. Her ears weren't pierced. She didn't wear necklaces a lot, but she had some, and if she liked it.... Maybe, if he couldn't find her something here, he could talk to Bobby about finding another amulet like his. Matching stuff was supposed to be romantic, right?
On the other hand, since she knew Sam had given him the amulet.... The two of them were already giving him headaches. He wasn't sure he needed more. And he needed to save some brain cells for the wedding.
Somebody had put most of the necklaces into a box to clean the case, and hadn't set but a few back out, so the old tin box Anita used for them was piled as high as a treasure chest. Dean sighed. Two birds, and all that. He could get these things set back out properly and look for something for Marcy. It'd fend off the boredom for awhile, anyway.
Lots of fake pearls, a few matching some of the pins and earrings. Those should be put out as sets. Enough strings of seashells and shell beads to start their own commune, and why the hell was Anita even trying to sell those things? Did anybody still want them? They certainly weren't worth enough to be kept in here with the good stuff.
He zipped over to housewares and found something that, if it wasn't supposed to be a rack for necklaces, was close enough, and draped all the cheap stuff on it. No point in taking up valuable locked-case space for stuff that she was selling for- Jesus, less than a dollar a necklace. Anita was way too soft-hearted for this business.
He got most of the pearls out and in a pile over to the side, so that he could match them up with their other pieces and fix the display properly, then reached into the can for a necklace of dark red beads-and froze.
That was not a necklace.
He lifted it out carefully. The shop lights made the rosary's round beads glow blood-red-garnet, maybe? They definitely weren't plastic, and he didn't think they were glass; glass tended to be perfect, but these beads had inclusions. (When your life depended on the quality of stone you used in a ritual, you picked up these things.) The wear on the crucifix and centerpiece meant it was one of those real antiques. The metal might even be real silver, instead of pewter or something cheaper.
He untangled it from itself, carefully, in case the links had corroded or broken, and laid it out on the counter. The crucifix was pretty big, in comparison with modern rosaries, but not huge, like that old monk's rosary Pastor Jim had kept hanging in his house. The centerpiece had a scene on it, rather than just a-
"Son of a bitch," he whispered, recognizing it. St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes.
The statue of the Virgin that lived above Marcy's TV was Lourdes. There were a couple of cards and other small devotional items that stayed on the shelf with it, and one of them had a picture of this exact scene. He'd seen it when he accidentally knocked the card down one day while checking the cables, trying to diagnose a video problem.
He still had a hunter's habit of noticing details, and he was fairly sure Marcy didn't have a Lourdes rosary. She owned lots of rosaries, including a shoebox full he'd found in what was now his underwear drawer, but she only used a few. There had been a one-decade car rosary hanging on Bruce's mirror, but she'd taken it down when Dean started driving the car. There were a couple in her nightstand, the ones she actually used-he'd interrupted her a couple of times. There might be a couple of more he hadn't seen-she had a specific purse she used when she went to Mass that had some prayer things in it, so there was probably at least one in there, and he thought there might be a little black case tucked in Bruce's glove compartment.
Dean leaned back, trying to remember. The box he'd found had been full, but none of those had had any signs of use; the loose ones had been all tangled up, and the ones in cases didn't look like they'd ever been opened. Gifts, probably, so she wouldn't just toss or sell or regift them, but every one of them was unsuitable for Marcy: gold hardware, pink beads, saints she didn't care for, that kind of thing. The ones in her nightstand were ones she used at home, at least when he wasn't in the room; they were both silver, one with blue beads and one with red, and had Miraculous Medal centers. He didn't remember seeing a single Lourdes or Bernadette one, even though the statue meant Marcy definitely had a personal devotion to that particular aspect of the Virgin.
Lourdes had something to do with healing; there was the magic healing spring and all that. Maybe it was a devotion she'd developed after the rebar. If he remembered right, First Communion and Confirmation were the big rosary-giving occasions, and she may have had both of those before the accident.
What did the ones she used have in common? Plain round beads, not faceted or with multi-colored finishes, and decent-sized, not tiny. Silver or silver-colored, of course; Marcy hated gold, which was why she'd decided to copy his ring instead of them buying more traditional wedding rings. No reliquaries, and this centerpiece was not a reliquary; there was no place on the back to keep Lourdes water, just engraved words in fancy script: que soy era immaculada councepciou. Not Latin, and Dean was pretty sure that last word wasn't Spanish, but he couldn't have said anything else about it.
The chain and links looked sound, but he could have Third's jeweler pal double-check. If the beads actually were garnet-which happened to be Marcy's favorite gemstone, as Nick, Third, and Ally had made a point of telling him during the engagement ring nagging-then this was perfect. Literally. He couldn't make a better rosary for her, if he knew how.
He twisted it around, looking for the tag. There wasn't one. Dammit.
Gemstones and real silver meant it would be expensive; a hundred, easily, maybe even two. Maybe more, depending on the age. Most of the rosaries they'd used in hunting had come through Pastor Jim and his connections to a couple of religious hermits who made rosaries specifically for hunters, therefore cheap to free, but there had been a few emergencies where they'd had to find one quick, and ones sturdy enough to hold up to hunting were expensive.
He borrowed Anita's Internet long enough for a brief search of the phrase on the centerpiece. It was apparently what the Virgin had said to Bernadette when pressed for her name: I am the Immaculate Conception. It looked weird because it was in some local dialect, not actual French, and it looked Spanish because Lourdes was apparently way closer to Spain than he'd thought. That made the rosary very unusual, from everything he could find. Nothing like it came up in any of his Google searches.
Unusual meant more expensive. Assuming Anita had any idea how much it was worth to begin with; she might not.
But was it appropriate? Marcy knew his feelings about religion, and he didn't think she'd take a gift of a rosary as some kind of insult-but what if she did? Was it crossing that no unbelievers allowed line? Did she even have that line?
Maybe he should reconsider the damn oil change.
Just to be safe, though, he put it back in the box, rather than setting it out, where somebody might see it.
Just until he was sure.
***
He still hadn't figured anything a week later, and that was after searching the apartment and going through Bruce's insides twice, hoping to find something he could improve.
Naturally, today they had their first possible customers all week. Two college-aged kids, reeking of patchouli and pretention, were browsing the records and making snide remarks in annoying voices about people who listened to music on anything other than vinyl. Dean sat behind the counter, pretending to go through a ledger, periodically gracing their smarmy little asses with his best death glare. He was either losing his skills in that department, or they were more resistant than most.
"AC/DC? Who the fuck listens to AC/DC? Are they even music?"
Pain lanced through Dean's hand. He looked down and was surprised to find the pencil in two pieces. I'll show you music, you little-
The world went blank in a way that was becoming annoyingly familiar.
Stink of hospital. Dark outside. Beeps of monitors.
He was looking at himself in a hospital bed-unconscious, from the look of things. There was a bandage on his head, both legs were in what looked like traction, and there was a splint on one arm. Marcy stood at his bedside, a phone in her hand. She looked completely worn out, but instead of settling into the reclining chair near the window, already made up with blankets and a pillow, she sighed, and rummaged in her purse a moment. The phone vanished somewhere in its depths, and then she gave him a soft kiss on the forehead and walked out of the room.
She found the chapel down a side hall, abandoned this time of night, and knelt near the altar. The dim light glowed dark red through the beads of her rosary as she straightened it out, then found the crucifix and crossed herself. "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit-"
The vision shattered around him, dropping him back into the shop, right where he'd been a minute ago. Damn these things!
The college brats were giving him alarmed looks. Shit, had one asked him something? Were the damn visions coming out as seizures now, like they had with Sam?
Or maybe it's the fact that you're holding a broken pencil like a knife.
He made himself carefully set the halves into the can next to the register. Normally, he would have just tossed it, but that would require getting out from behind the counter, and he did not want those two to see that he was in a wheelchair. Anybody who questioned the musical abilities of Angus Young was probably too stupid to manage decent wheelchair manners, and post-vision, Dean's control on his own manners was less than stellar. For some reason, Anita frowned on decapitating the customers. Even if they were just browsing.
Luckily, one said something quietly to his friend, and they left-but it didn't look like they were pissed, so maybe they'd just been browsing anyway. Or he'd done something while in vision-mode that scared them. Which would be just great.
There had to be some way to get rid of these fucking things, no matter what Missouri said. The injuries, he could handle; not walking was a pain, but he was getting used to it, and all things considered, it was a better end to his hunting career than he'd ever imagined. But he had never signed on to be a fucking psychic! One of these days he was going to have one of these things someplace dangerous, like behind the wheel!
Was that what had happened to land him in the hospital in that condition? Or something more normal? Marcy hadn't looked worried, just exhausted. Sometimes she prayed for the comfort of it, he thought, not just to put in a request.
He rubbed his temples. He hated this. Yes, it had saved Marcy's life, but the constant little ones, jerking him out of reality and dumping him into the future without any warning.... Sam at least had had headaches to warn him. That had saved them both a few times, when he was driving. Dean got nothing. Not so much as a bit of blurry vision. Just blank and bam. Any headaches he got came after.
It was enough to make a man look forward to nightmares. At least then he was safely horizontal.
Sam's had all been demon-related. There was a reason he saw what he saw, and it was always clear. Dean, though-Dean had to analyze the fucking things, spending hours trying to figure out why and when and how important. If he'd learned one thing from that plane crash vision, it was that he could change things.
If he'd learned anything else from the damn things, it was that sometimes his brain decided it was more important for him to remember to get milk next Tuesday than it was for him to be warned of something big, like-say-Sam having a fucking meltdown over the thought of Dean getting married. Sam at least had seen important things, murder and demon mayhem, not goddamned grocery lists.
So. Analyze.
It had been hard to tell about him through all those bandages, but Marcy had looked older. Not a lot, just a few years, but that meant that at least he didn't have to worry about this being the day after tomorrow. The phone she'd been holding had looked weird-some kind of PDA or smartphone, maybe, though by the casual way she'd left it in her purse, not nearly as expensive as the ones he was familiar with. Then again, that was how technology worked; things that were expensive now would be fairly cheap a few years down the road. Nothing about her clothes or hairstyle had looked unusual, so styles hadn't changed a lot.
He wasn't worried about what had happened to him. For all the bandages and splints, Marcy had been too calm for him to be at death's door. Besides, if it had been really serious, Sam would have been there. No matter how touchy Marcy's relationship with Sam was, she'd make sure of that.
If it had been a wreck, though- If he'd wrecked Bruce, Marcy wouldn't have been that calm, she'd be strangling him with an IV line. Maybe at some point he got his own car? Or Sam decided he didn't want the Impala anymore?
God, I hope I didn't get that wrecking my car. I don't know if I can rebuild her again.
If he had wrecked a car-well, it wouldn't be the first time. Why would he need to be warned about it? That was...normal. Rather refreshingly normal, given his history. And Marcy praying-well, she did that. It was what religious people did. He didn't get it, but it was important to her, like the crappy hair metal. Hell, she was better about the religion than she was the music, because they both agreed that the driver picked. Which meant she'd never nag him to convert, but also that he would never escape the damn Enuff Z'nuff.
And then he remembered the rosary Marcy had used.
Son of a bitch.
This was his life now. Not only was he stuck with Sam's visions, they were about Christmas presents.
"Fine," he muttered, "have it your way." He pulled the rosary out of the case and tucked it safely underneath the counter until he had a chance to talk to Anita.
***
Dean woke up to something instrumental, Christmasy, and guitar-heavy, with Marcy singing wordlessly along-which probably explained why he'd been dreaming about a banshee. "Merry Christmas, sleepyhead," she said.
Belatedly, he realized that it was daylight-and by the light, probably near noon, if not later. "Well, I was up late," he said, pushing himself up. He'd waited up for her to get home, and then they'd watched Die Hard by the light of the Christmas tree...and then they'd done other things by the Christmas lights. "What are you doing?"
"Getting ready."
If he wasn't mistaken, she was packing. Not laying out clothes for him to wear, the way she sometimes did if she got bored, but actually packing. "For what?"
"Mama's."
Dean squinted, just in case his eyes were still blurred by sleep, but nothing changed. She was packing his duffel. Those were his socks. "Okay, either you think I'm going to need a week's worth of clothes to go eat dinner at your mom's, or I did something to really piss you off."
"Well, she does go overboard on the desserts at Christmas," Marcy said, entirely too cheerfully, "and that was before you joined the family. The whole den is probably a pie bar this year."
Only if he was lucky. "How many recipes can she have?"
Marcy raised an eyebrow. "My mother?"
Belatedly, he remembered the Wall of Cookbooks. Anne's house possibly had more cookbooks than spoons, and there were three drawers of those in the kitchen. "Forget I said that." He sat up. "Really, though, why are-"
"It's part of your present. But I can't give you the whole thing till after Mama's."
Ah. She must be plotting a surprise trip. If he hadn't been home all day yesterday, she probably would have managed to get him packed up without him noticing. "Okay." She'd talked about going up to the mountains for a weekend trip before the wedding, so maybe that was it. It wouldn't surprise him a bit if the Reynoldses owned a ski lodge or mountain resort or twelve somewhere.
But speaking of presents....
He reached into his nightstand drawer, where he'd hidden it, and pulled out the little box. "Merry Christmas."
"Black paper?" she asked, and her mouth twitched.
"It has snowflakes," he pointed out. "That makes it Christmasy." Anita had done the wrapping, after she caught him trying to do it. Once she stopped laughing.
Marcy did laugh. "I can't fault that logic," she said, and momentarily abandoned the packing to hop up on the bed. "Why didn't you put it under the tree?"
He blinked. "I didn't think about it," he admitted, earning himself another round of laughter. "Just open it, will you?"
She slid her nails under Anita's neat tape and pulled off the paper, exposing the little wooden keepsake box Anita had found for him. "You got me a box?"
"I thought you needed one," he retorted. "Open it already."
Despite Anita's urgings, and the best attempts of her engraver friend, he'd gone for simple-just the date. Putting Marcy's name on it had seemed ridiculous, since she was going to be changing it in two months, and putting her new name just seemed like it was daring things to go wrong. If she wanted more added, they could get it done later.
She pried the box open, and then just sat there with her mouth open, staring.
"Marce?" he finally asked. He'd screwed up somehow, he must have-
"Where did you find this?" she whispered, holding it up so that the crucifix dangled free. The beads caught the daylight in flashes of blood-red. "Dean-"
"It was mixed in with the jewelry at the store," he said, trying to head off any protest about him spending too much money. "I cleaned and cleansed it, so no dead people are still attached to it, and your uncle blessed it, and your dad's jeweler friend said the beads are real garnets and-"
"You got me a rosary." She sounded stunned.
"I know Lourdes is your favorite, and you didn't have one with her on it-"
"You actually pay that much attention to my rosaries?" she interrupted. "Dean, you don't even believe in God-"
"No, but you do." Shit. That was quite possibly the lamest thing he'd ever said.
Lame enough to make her cry, apparently, since her eyes were suddenly very bright. Dammit. He should've just ignored that stupid vision and begged Third to let him borrow the garage-
She actually lunged at him, rosary clutched tight in her hand, and knocked him over with a kiss. "I love you, Dean Winchester."
"Mmph?" he managed, intelligently.
"This is perfect," she said, "and I'm not bullshitting you. That you'd give me this, when you don't even- My God, you are a wonderful man."
"You know, you really need higher standards."
"My standards are plenty high," she retorted, and kissed him again, like she was trying to prove it. "And as much as I would like to say 'thank you' the old-fashioned way, we have to be at Mama's in an hour."
"We could tell her Bruce broke down," he suggested. Stay here with Marcy or tackle the crowd at Anne's. Not much of a decision, as far as he was concerned.
"Any other day, I'd think about it. Not on Christmas, though." She sighed, and slid off the bed. "C'mon, get dressed and finish packing, and I'll start loading things up."
Dean pushed himself up, snagged a pair of socks from the half-packed duffel, then reached for his braces. He might as well get the hard part done before he got out of bed. It was easier to get around after he had the things on than before.
Marcy tossed the wrapping paper and put the box in her nightstand-but, he noticed, she didn't put the rosary back in it. No, it went straight into her pocket, her fingers lingering over the beads like she wanted to try it out right then. The same way she ran her hand over Bruce's hood sometimes, or that silver flask of her grandfather's.
Whatever it was exactly that he'd gotten in that blood-transfer from Sam, the visions clearly knew what they were doing.
***
Third and Anne lived far enough out that the quickest route back into the city was usually the interstate, although if they weren't in a particular hurry, Marcy was just as likely to take some twisty back way. So Dean wasn't really paying attention when they made the turn onto I-85.
At least, not until they hit Kannapolis.
"I think we took a wrong turn," he said, wondering just how much chocolate she'd had. He'd only seen her with one piece of cake, but that didn't mean she hadn't raided the truffles. She'd had some punch at one point, but that should have worn off by now.
She grinned. "No, we didn't."
"Then why are we going north?"
"Because this is your present. Merry Christmas, Dean."
He waited a second, but got no further explanation. "Okay, I don't get it."
"We're going to New Paltz. Sarah's hosting us."
"What?"
"So you can have quality time with your brother." He blinked. "We were going to leave tomorrow, but luckily I remembered that you're scared of airplanes before I bought the tickets."
"Airplanes are fine-"
"As long as they're on the ground?"
"Yeah, well, you wrestle a demon at ten thousand feet and see how much you love flying." She laughed. "Marcy, it- I love the thought, I do, it's just-"
"Worried me and Sam will kill each other?"
"It crossed my mind." Threats from Jo, a visit and lecture from Bobby, and another lecture from Ellen, plus whatever Sarah had been dishing out-and the fact that Dean didn't answer the phone for a couple of weeks-had made Sam back down and apologize, and he'd agreed to be best man, but that didn't mean he approved. The only reason this wasn't more of a mess was that it wasn't personal-Sam and Marcy didn't hate each other, they were clashing about the best way to take care of Dean.
"I'm way ahead of you," she said, giving him the grin that meant he was in deep trouble. "Sarah's going to help with distractions in the evenings, and I have a daytime schedule that would make a tour guide weep. I'm meeting old friends, I've got things to buy for the wedding, there's an architect Dad recommended I talk to-"
"Daytime?" he interrupted, catching the important word. If that was only her daytime schedule, and Sarah was helping with evening distractions, was she going to be there at night? Much as he'd like to spend some time with Sam-he'd only seen his brother once since Sam headed for New York, and they'd spent most of those few days screaming at each other-he wasn't willing to give up Marcy to do it, not even for a week. Not just yet, anyway. If nothing else, Sam was bound to take it the wrong way.
"My generosity has its limits," she said, a little sharply, "and I am not giving you up for my entire vacation. He can put up with a few awkward soon-to-be-family meals. Anyway, you and Sam be brothers for a little while. Play in the snow, get drunk, watch movies, whatever. See if you can convince him I'm not some kind of soul-sucking brother-stealing harpy."
"I don't think he thinks you suck souls," Dean said dryly, making her laugh. "Does Sam know about this?"
"Not that I know of. I think Sarah wanted to surprise him."
Sam was going to be surprised, all right. Sam was probably expecting a nice, quiet week off with Sarah.
That was when he realized what this really was. Sure, it was partly brother time-but it was also Marcy offering to meet Sam halfway to try to fix this, even though she was still pissed off at him, and had every right to be. She could have insisted on staying at a hotel rather than at Sarah's, could have refused to have any interaction with Sam at all, even with Dean and Sarah to buffer them, and Dean wouldn't have argued-and she knew he wouldn't.
She could have just left it alone, but she wanted to fix it. For him.
"I don't deserve you," he said quietly.
"Bullshit," his loving fiancée answered promptly, and reached for the radio.
Title: The First Noel (FFN/AO3)
Word Count: 8000
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: Dean's first Christmas with Marcy means confronting a brand-new enemy: Finding a gift.
So, this was not the Christmas story I originally planned on posting this year, and as a result, some of the background may sound confusing. All you really need to know (and possibly look forward to reading) is that, upon receiving the news that he was getting a sister-in-law, Sam reacted...poorly. Very poorly. I promise the details will get told eventually.
"People, we are not your trash can," Dean muttered, tossing another stained, ragged T-shirt into the rapidly rising discard pile beside his chair. Anita's shop wasn't technically a charity-she had only a very loose association with a couple of other shops that were-but apparently, some people couldn't tell the difference. Nobody got a tax break for donating things here, but sometimes, people were so vested in getting the shit out of their house that they just didn't care.
Of course, they didn't bother checking to see if the stuff was in sellable condition, either. He hated to think how bad the crap at Goodwill or the Salvation Army had to be.
Anita came in. She picked up the discard pile and dumped it into the "Mindy bin." The friend of hers who did mending on clothes that weren't too far gone did something with all that stuff, and what Mindy didn't use, she got rid of, saving Anita the time and hassle. "Everybody goes shopping for new stuff this time of year," she said when he shot her a confused look; she was supposed to be minding the register. "Nobody wants used stuff, except for the handful looking for antiques. So it's going to be very slow for the next couple of weeks. After Christmas, though, people who can't get refunds or need to clean out shelf space, and people who swore they'd declutter the house for their resolution, they'll be packing the place."
"No asking for New Year's off, huh?"
"More or less." She pulled out the rickety chair that lived back here because it was too battered to sell and lowered herself carefully into it so that the bad leg didn't break again. "So what are you getting Marcy for Christmas?"
Dean looked up from the jeans he was trying to untangle. "Huh?"
"Your fiancée. Remember her? What are you getting her for Christmas?"
Dean blinked.
Son of a-
His expression must have betrayed him, because Anita laughed. "You completely forgot, didn't you?"
"I didn't- I mean-"
He hadn't forgotten, because it hadn't occurred to him. It just honestly had never occurred to him. Christmas hadn't meant anything to the Winchesters since that year Sam found out what Dad really did. That had turned Sammy into a full-on Grinch for years, and without Dean reminding him, the only reason Dad even noticed the difference on the calendar was because the winter solstice tended to bring out a whole different class of monsters. Dean hadn't been terribly upset with it, to be honest; fewer attempts at celebration meant fewer things to remind him of those hazy holidays before the fire.
That first year after Jessica died, while he and Sam were searching for Dad, Dean had tried to do something special for the holidays, only to have it backfire and send Sam on a grief-fueled drinking binge, because-as Dean found out later-Sam had been planning a Christmas proposal. The next year, it had been Sam trying to hold him together, and had ended with black eyes all around and Bobby kicking them out of the house. After that, they'd just kind of agreed to not even try. Presents had never entered the equation, of course; they didn't have the spare money or any place to keep anything that wasn't hunting-related.
And Dean couldn't think of a single situation in which he'd ever needed to buy a woman a present. Drinks didn't count.
I am so fucked.
There was another issue, too: Money. Anita was pretty generous-not a lot of bosses would let an employee have free choice of donated clothes, then insist he take the good ones, and if he'd gotten his own place instead of moving in with Marcy, Anita would have insisted on a couple of runs through housewares and furniture-but his actual pay was barely above minimum wage. Most of it went to groceries, his share of the gas for Bruce, and his new, legitimate cell phone. He'd trashed the last of the scammed cards some time ago. He had a bank account now, an appeasement gesture after Sam's overreaction to the engagement, but he hadn't touched it; unless Sam had sent him money, the way he had while Dean was in rehab, there was nothing more in it than the initial deposit, and that had been absurdly low.
He couldn't ask Marcy for money to buy her a present. Even he knew that that would just be tacky.
Not to mention, with her money.... Anything she wanted, she had. Anything she didn't have, she could get. Even with borrowed money, what the hell could he buy that she didn't already have? He couldn't even offer to do an oil change on Bruce; he didn't have the supplies or the space, and besides, she was meticulous about keeping the car up already. She kinda had to, since Third was very possessive about the cars he rebuilt.
"I-um-I'm still thinking about it," he finally managed. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. After tomorrow, he'd need a new excuse, but right now, it wasn't Thanksgiving yet.
"Uh-huh." Anita sounded completely unconvinced. "Tell you what. While we're slow, look through the jewelry case. I'll let you-"
"Anita!"
"What?"
"Is this going to be a thing? I mean, are you going to be nagging me till Christmas?"
"Only if I have to," she said cheerily. "You have to get her something, Dean. Even if you ask her and she says you don't. Trust me. Nobody means it when they say 'you don't have to get me anything.'"
"I'm not that stupid," he said, stung.
"You'd be surprised how many men can't figure that out," she replied. "My father did that one year. I nearly wound up an orphan." He snorted. "You didn't even think about presents."
"No." He was now, though. The next few weeks were going to be painful.
She gave him a look. "When's Marcy's birthday?"
"August. It was right after we met. Why?"
"I just want to make sure you don't forget that too."
"Anita!"
Thankfully, the chimes on the front door went off, and Anita dashed for the front of the store to keep an eye on the customers.
Dean sagged back into his chair. Presents.
Wasn't normal life was supposed to have fewer nightmares?
***
Dean pushed open the door, blinked, then double-checked. Nope, right number. He hadn't somehow accidentally gone into Mrs. Reilly's apartment without being greeted by screams and Buttercup.
Still, he wasn't entirely sure he was in the right place. There was loud Christmas music playing-that rock-classical band with the funny name that had all those Christmas albums-and it looked like the North Pole had exploded. The kitchen table now had a seasonal tablecloth and centerpiece, and there were Christmasy potholders hanging on the drawer handles, and fucking chair covers. There were garlands on the balcony and above the doors and windows, and a very large Christmas tree was now occupying a hefty hunk of the living room. He glanced at the oven, but it was off, which meant that the powerful scent of baking sugar cookies currently warring with the smell of fresh evergreen must be candle-related.
"Marcy?" he called, setting his keys on the table by the door. The ceramic seashell he normally used had been replaced by a ratty-looking wooden sleigh pulled by a red Styrofoam reindeer with gold tinsel harness. She had to be responsible for this. Why would anybody else break in and deck their halls? And the doors and the balcony and the living room and the kitchen and-he checked-the bathroom? He hoped she hadn't gone berserk in their bedroom and bathroom, because if random objects started singing Christmas carols every time he needed to pee-
"Dean?" Marcy stuck her head out of the second bedroom. She was wearing a tree's worth of light strings looped around her shoulders and had a ring of plastic holly set in her hair like a crown. "You're home early."
"Store was dead. What the-"
"Testing lights." She gave him a sheepish grin. "I have a weakness for Christmas lights."
Dean deliberately turned and looked at the Christmas tree, which possibly had more lights than needles. No wonder the room smelled like pine; that many lights had to be baking the damn tree. How many times a day were they going to have to water that thing? "You don't say. Are you even going to be able to get ornaments on that?"
"Of course. I haven't even gotten the icicles on it yet."
"The tinsel?"
"No, the icicle lights. This is what I get for letting Tori help me pack things up last year. I can't find shit." She pulled the strings of lights over her head and tossed them on the back of the couch. "Does this make you uncomfortable?"
"No, I just wasn't expecting Santa to explode." She made a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. "Besides, it's your house."
Her eyes went dark. "No, it's our house," she corrected sharply. She took the holly out of her hair and wrapped it around the base of the statue of the Virgin that lived above the TV. "And if you have a problem, tell me. Or any traditions you want to add."
"What, you want to prop up a shotgun in the corner and put some tinsel on it? We don't have any traditions."
"None?"
Oh, shit. Now he was getting the Reynolds version of the sad eyes. Maybe he shouldn't hope that someday she and Sam would manage to get along; Dean wasn't sure he could handle puppy eyes in stereo. "Don't," he said, hoping to head it off. "It- It was what it was, that's all. Aren't you supposed to do this on Friday?"
"I like to have everything ready to go on Thursday night. I want this place lit up with the Christmas spirit when we come back from Mama's." She turned down the stereo. "Soon as I find the damn timers, at least," she added, almost in an undertone.
Right. Lunch-dammit, dinner tomorrow at Anne and Third's, with the entire clan in attendance; not just the immediate family, but also any of the cousins who didn't have any other place to go, not to mention whatever friends and strays got dragged in by overzealous Reynoldses. He wondered how many turkeys it took to feed the whole family. Probably a whole flock, even if they did supplement with a stray pig or two. "So we go eat, come home to a magnificent light show-" She laughed. "-and then what? Christmas-wise, I mean?"
Okay, so it wasn't his best segue, but he couldn't just come out and say, Hey, Marcy, Anita said I have to get you a present, do I really?
"You mean, what our holiday plans are?"
"I guess. I mean, I was wondering if we did, what with the Twelve Tribes and all-"
"Nine," she corrected absently. "It- I'm sorry, Dean, it's just been so long since I had to do the two people thing.... I guess this is a downside of the whole fast relationship thing, huh?" He chuckled. "Give me a minute." She went back into the spare room and came out with a huge plastic tote of lights. She plugged in an extension cord and tested the lights as she talked. "In terms of the holiday itself- I go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. And Mama has dinner over there on Christmas Day. We usually wind up eating a little late, around two or three, to accommodate all the other families and the kids opening Santa presents and the ones who prefer morning Mass to midnight. Granny used to do a thing at her place, but since Junior died, she's just been bringing the punch to Mama's. Oh, and we draw names tomorrow for presents, but we do it kinda weird because there's so many of us. I'd explain, but that's Dad's job and he's really looking forward to the fresh meat this year."
"Oh, great." So that was another gift he had to get. Not to mention the joy of sitting through one of Third's "explanations." At least this one should be easier to understand than the family tree.
"We have a money limit over there, if that's what you're worried about."
Yeah, but the Reynolds idea of a money limit was probably a lot higher than his.
"And I'll help you, whoever you get. Especially if you get Sean or something. My family's hard to shop for."
No shit.
She dragged a very long set of lights to the tree and started trying to wrap them around it. Careful not to roll over anything, he wheeled over to hold the free end for her. "Thanks. Are you fishing around for gift ideas for me?"
"Um. Maybe."
Marcy chuckled. "Subtle you are not."
"I can do subtle!"
"Sure you can. That's why you locked me in the bathroom instead of just telling me the plane would crash."
"That was subtle. You should have seen my other plans."
"Right." Marcy reached down and gave the boot on his broken ankle a solid thunk, and he stuck his tongue out at her. They were nothing if not mature. "Well, I won't tell you that whatever you get me will be perfect, because we both know that's a load of shit. But I promise not to say that to your face. I only request that it not be a weapon and not be wedding related."
That...didn't really help. He didn't know where to start with the damn wedding stuff to begin with; he was just obeying orders. He'd already caught Marcy on the phone with Sarah twice, which was two more times than he was comfortable with.
He wished he'd thought of a weapon before she'd said that, though. Weapons he knew, and she could use a good hunting knife. Everybody needed a good hunting knife.
"If you don't want to do presents-" She stretched to toss the last loop of the string of lights over the top of the tree. He started to get up to help, but the boot caught on one of the footrests, reminding him that he wasn't supposed to be doing that much standing anyway. "-we don't have to."
There was something about the way she said that-disappointment, maybe? Or plotting? Did she already have a gift for him? "No, that's not what I meant," he said quickly. "It's just- We were never any good at Christmas."
"You'll be fine." Her eyes took on a sudden twinkle, and she headed for the coat closet.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked as she started to rummage. "Tell me there's not more decorations in there."
"Paying homage to my fiancé's traditions," she said, emerging with an old, battered rifle. It looked like an antique, not a working weapon. "Proving that even a Winchester can manage a Christmas."
"Where'd that come from?"
"My great-grandfather. Mama's side. Somehow, I wound up with it after Firth got hurt, I don't know how. And no, it doesn't work, but it's the only gun in the house big enough to decorate." She reached into a box and pulled out a length of silvery garland. "Now," she said, standing there with a gun in one hand and tinsel in the other, looking like the Spirit of Christmas Murder, "is it just tinsel, or tinsel and lights?"
"Marcy!"
"Lights, then?"
He gave up. "You are insane, woman."
She grinned, and kissed him. "Wait till you see the stocking Court made for you."
"Oh, God," he groaned, and she laughed.
***
Black Friday wasn't all that black in the store. Anita must have been right about people only buying new stuff.
Nobody came in all afternoon. Nobody. Not even somebody looking for "vintage" crap. Anita had a dentist's appointment, so it was just Dean and his boredom. No wonder he and Anita were the only ones scheduled today.
There hadn't even been enough customers to justify straightening the shelves. Anita had finished sorting the last of the week's donations and consignments before she left. None of the books on the shelves looked remotely interesting-and frankly, most of them were bodice-ripper romances. Dean would shoot himself before risking being caught with one of those, even if only by a customer.
He had sneaked a few of Marcy's catalogs out of the stack by the simple method of stuffing a handful into the pocket on the back of his chair last night while she was making finicky adjustments to the balcony lights, but flipping through them provided absolutely no hints-nothing circled, no dog-eared pages to remember for later, no Post-Its or napkins or candy wrappers as makeshift bookmarks. He wasn't even sure she got these because she actually liked the things in them. She didn't look at them as much as she once had, she'd said, since now she wasn't eating meals alone; they'd mainly been something to read while she ate. He probably looked at them more than she did, at least when she was out of town.
A quick, half-whispered conference with Nick, Andy, and David during the festivities yesterday hadn't yielded any ideas. Firth would probably have thoughts on the matter, but Dean wasn't sure Firth would keep quiet. He didn't know Mike all that well yet, and he didn't trust the sisters not to laugh at him. Anne would give him what he privately called the Mama Look, the one that made him feel an inch tall and really stupid, and probably ask Marcy if the wedding should be cancelled. Third would let it slip to the whole family within a week, and the last thing Dean needed was to be accosted by Aunt Myrtle and her medieval insistence that all any woman wanted was kitchenware.
He'd even called Bobby this morning, hoping for some useful advice. That got him five solid minutes-he timed it-of braying laughter before Bobby finally managed to wheeze, "Dean, just ask her what she wants."
Dean hadn't bothered calling Sam, since he knew what that would get him. Sam would say that if he didn't even know what to buy a woman for Christmas, he had no business marrying her.
Maybe Sam was right. Maybe it just was too soon. Maybe he needed more time to get used to normal.
"No," he said, and didn't even realize he'd said it aloud until the stupid voice-activated Santa next to the cash register started dancing.
He'd fought his own brother over getting married, like he and Sam hadn't fought over anything, not even Stanford or Dad or hunting. This was a fucking present. If another Winchester wasn't going to get between Dean and Marcy, a damn gift wasn't. This-this was just another hunt, really. And every monster had a weakness, you just had to find it.
So. Start with the obvious. What did Marcy like? Him. Bruce. Bad hair metal.
But she already had a him, and a Bruce, and he was not going to scour the Internet for obscure hair metal on the off chance that she'd like it and didn't already own it. She had all eight of Warrant's albums, for crying out loud, plus three compilations and a live album, and he'd thought they'd broken up after two.
She liked church. He could offer to go to Christmas Mass, maybe?
No. Marcy would only want him there if he wanted to be there, and she knew damn well the last thing he wanted was to sit in a crowded, incense-smoke-filled church in the middle of the damn night and listen to them praise somebody who, if existent, had to be the biggest asshole in the universe. She'd welcome him if he ever had a change of heart, but to go just to go, like some kind of sightseeing trip.... She wasn't like that. She might even take it as an insult.
Girl stuff? Fuck, where did he even start with what he didn't know about that?
This was impossible. Killing a demon had been easier.
He was debating the merits of making fun of an antique National Geographic with a feature on the Soviet Union when the reflection off a passing car struck the jewelry case.
Anita had said he could look through it. Some of those pieces were real antiques, not cheap costume jewelry. Probably still nothing he could afford, unless Anita was very generous with a payment plan, but it couldn't hurt to look. Maybe he'd get lucky.
Or not. Marcy already had plenty of fancy pins-nearly a whole box full, just of those. Fancy hair thingies, too, including some she'd inherited. Rings were out; anything he got her now would be interpreted by everybody else as an engagement ring, and they'd decided against that. Her ears weren't pierced. She didn't wear necklaces a lot, but she had some, and if she liked it.... Maybe, if he couldn't find her something here, he could talk to Bobby about finding another amulet like his. Matching stuff was supposed to be romantic, right?
On the other hand, since she knew Sam had given him the amulet.... The two of them were already giving him headaches. He wasn't sure he needed more. And he needed to save some brain cells for the wedding.
Somebody had put most of the necklaces into a box to clean the case, and hadn't set but a few back out, so the old tin box Anita used for them was piled as high as a treasure chest. Dean sighed. Two birds, and all that. He could get these things set back out properly and look for something for Marcy. It'd fend off the boredom for awhile, anyway.
Lots of fake pearls, a few matching some of the pins and earrings. Those should be put out as sets. Enough strings of seashells and shell beads to start their own commune, and why the hell was Anita even trying to sell those things? Did anybody still want them? They certainly weren't worth enough to be kept in here with the good stuff.
He zipped over to housewares and found something that, if it wasn't supposed to be a rack for necklaces, was close enough, and draped all the cheap stuff on it. No point in taking up valuable locked-case space for stuff that she was selling for- Jesus, less than a dollar a necklace. Anita was way too soft-hearted for this business.
He got most of the pearls out and in a pile over to the side, so that he could match them up with their other pieces and fix the display properly, then reached into the can for a necklace of dark red beads-and froze.
That was not a necklace.
He lifted it out carefully. The shop lights made the rosary's round beads glow blood-red-garnet, maybe? They definitely weren't plastic, and he didn't think they were glass; glass tended to be perfect, but these beads had inclusions. (When your life depended on the quality of stone you used in a ritual, you picked up these things.) The wear on the crucifix and centerpiece meant it was one of those real antiques. The metal might even be real silver, instead of pewter or something cheaper.
He untangled it from itself, carefully, in case the links had corroded or broken, and laid it out on the counter. The crucifix was pretty big, in comparison with modern rosaries, but not huge, like that old monk's rosary Pastor Jim had kept hanging in his house. The centerpiece had a scene on it, rather than just a-
"Son of a bitch," he whispered, recognizing it. St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes.
The statue of the Virgin that lived above Marcy's TV was Lourdes. There were a couple of cards and other small devotional items that stayed on the shelf with it, and one of them had a picture of this exact scene. He'd seen it when he accidentally knocked the card down one day while checking the cables, trying to diagnose a video problem.
He still had a hunter's habit of noticing details, and he was fairly sure Marcy didn't have a Lourdes rosary. She owned lots of rosaries, including a shoebox full he'd found in what was now his underwear drawer, but she only used a few. There had been a one-decade car rosary hanging on Bruce's mirror, but she'd taken it down when Dean started driving the car. There were a couple in her nightstand, the ones she actually used-he'd interrupted her a couple of times. There might be a couple of more he hadn't seen-she had a specific purse she used when she went to Mass that had some prayer things in it, so there was probably at least one in there, and he thought there might be a little black case tucked in Bruce's glove compartment.
Dean leaned back, trying to remember. The box he'd found had been full, but none of those had had any signs of use; the loose ones had been all tangled up, and the ones in cases didn't look like they'd ever been opened. Gifts, probably, so she wouldn't just toss or sell or regift them, but every one of them was unsuitable for Marcy: gold hardware, pink beads, saints she didn't care for, that kind of thing. The ones in her nightstand were ones she used at home, at least when he wasn't in the room; they were both silver, one with blue beads and one with red, and had Miraculous Medal centers. He didn't remember seeing a single Lourdes or Bernadette one, even though the statue meant Marcy definitely had a personal devotion to that particular aspect of the Virgin.
Lourdes had something to do with healing; there was the magic healing spring and all that. Maybe it was a devotion she'd developed after the rebar. If he remembered right, First Communion and Confirmation were the big rosary-giving occasions, and she may have had both of those before the accident.
What did the ones she used have in common? Plain round beads, not faceted or with multi-colored finishes, and decent-sized, not tiny. Silver or silver-colored, of course; Marcy hated gold, which was why she'd decided to copy his ring instead of them buying more traditional wedding rings. No reliquaries, and this centerpiece was not a reliquary; there was no place on the back to keep Lourdes water, just engraved words in fancy script: que soy era immaculada councepciou. Not Latin, and Dean was pretty sure that last word wasn't Spanish, but he couldn't have said anything else about it.
The chain and links looked sound, but he could have Third's jeweler pal double-check. If the beads actually were garnet-which happened to be Marcy's favorite gemstone, as Nick, Third, and Ally had made a point of telling him during the engagement ring nagging-then this was perfect. Literally. He couldn't make a better rosary for her, if he knew how.
He twisted it around, looking for the tag. There wasn't one. Dammit.
Gemstones and real silver meant it would be expensive; a hundred, easily, maybe even two. Maybe more, depending on the age. Most of the rosaries they'd used in hunting had come through Pastor Jim and his connections to a couple of religious hermits who made rosaries specifically for hunters, therefore cheap to free, but there had been a few emergencies where they'd had to find one quick, and ones sturdy enough to hold up to hunting were expensive.
He borrowed Anita's Internet long enough for a brief search of the phrase on the centerpiece. It was apparently what the Virgin had said to Bernadette when pressed for her name: I am the Immaculate Conception. It looked weird because it was in some local dialect, not actual French, and it looked Spanish because Lourdes was apparently way closer to Spain than he'd thought. That made the rosary very unusual, from everything he could find. Nothing like it came up in any of his Google searches.
Unusual meant more expensive. Assuming Anita had any idea how much it was worth to begin with; she might not.
But was it appropriate? Marcy knew his feelings about religion, and he didn't think she'd take a gift of a rosary as some kind of insult-but what if she did? Was it crossing that no unbelievers allowed line? Did she even have that line?
Maybe he should reconsider the damn oil change.
Just to be safe, though, he put it back in the box, rather than setting it out, where somebody might see it.
Just until he was sure.
***
He still hadn't figured anything a week later, and that was after searching the apartment and going through Bruce's insides twice, hoping to find something he could improve.
Naturally, today they had their first possible customers all week. Two college-aged kids, reeking of patchouli and pretention, were browsing the records and making snide remarks in annoying voices about people who listened to music on anything other than vinyl. Dean sat behind the counter, pretending to go through a ledger, periodically gracing their smarmy little asses with his best death glare. He was either losing his skills in that department, or they were more resistant than most.
"AC/DC? Who the fuck listens to AC/DC? Are they even music?"
Pain lanced through Dean's hand. He looked down and was surprised to find the pencil in two pieces. I'll show you music, you little-
The world went blank in a way that was becoming annoyingly familiar.
Stink of hospital. Dark outside. Beeps of monitors.
He was looking at himself in a hospital bed-unconscious, from the look of things. There was a bandage on his head, both legs were in what looked like traction, and there was a splint on one arm. Marcy stood at his bedside, a phone in her hand. She looked completely worn out, but instead of settling into the reclining chair near the window, already made up with blankets and a pillow, she sighed, and rummaged in her purse a moment. The phone vanished somewhere in its depths, and then she gave him a soft kiss on the forehead and walked out of the room.
She found the chapel down a side hall, abandoned this time of night, and knelt near the altar. The dim light glowed dark red through the beads of her rosary as she straightened it out, then found the crucifix and crossed herself. "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit-"
The vision shattered around him, dropping him back into the shop, right where he'd been a minute ago. Damn these things!
The college brats were giving him alarmed looks. Shit, had one asked him something? Were the damn visions coming out as seizures now, like they had with Sam?
Or maybe it's the fact that you're holding a broken pencil like a knife.
He made himself carefully set the halves into the can next to the register. Normally, he would have just tossed it, but that would require getting out from behind the counter, and he did not want those two to see that he was in a wheelchair. Anybody who questioned the musical abilities of Angus Young was probably too stupid to manage decent wheelchair manners, and post-vision, Dean's control on his own manners was less than stellar. For some reason, Anita frowned on decapitating the customers. Even if they were just browsing.
Luckily, one said something quietly to his friend, and they left-but it didn't look like they were pissed, so maybe they'd just been browsing anyway. Or he'd done something while in vision-mode that scared them. Which would be just great.
There had to be some way to get rid of these fucking things, no matter what Missouri said. The injuries, he could handle; not walking was a pain, but he was getting used to it, and all things considered, it was a better end to his hunting career than he'd ever imagined. But he had never signed on to be a fucking psychic! One of these days he was going to have one of these things someplace dangerous, like behind the wheel!
Was that what had happened to land him in the hospital in that condition? Or something more normal? Marcy hadn't looked worried, just exhausted. Sometimes she prayed for the comfort of it, he thought, not just to put in a request.
He rubbed his temples. He hated this. Yes, it had saved Marcy's life, but the constant little ones, jerking him out of reality and dumping him into the future without any warning.... Sam at least had had headaches to warn him. That had saved them both a few times, when he was driving. Dean got nothing. Not so much as a bit of blurry vision. Just blank and bam. Any headaches he got came after.
It was enough to make a man look forward to nightmares. At least then he was safely horizontal.
Sam's had all been demon-related. There was a reason he saw what he saw, and it was always clear. Dean, though-Dean had to analyze the fucking things, spending hours trying to figure out why and when and how important. If he'd learned one thing from that plane crash vision, it was that he could change things.
If he'd learned anything else from the damn things, it was that sometimes his brain decided it was more important for him to remember to get milk next Tuesday than it was for him to be warned of something big, like-say-Sam having a fucking meltdown over the thought of Dean getting married. Sam at least had seen important things, murder and demon mayhem, not goddamned grocery lists.
So. Analyze.
It had been hard to tell about him through all those bandages, but Marcy had looked older. Not a lot, just a few years, but that meant that at least he didn't have to worry about this being the day after tomorrow. The phone she'd been holding had looked weird-some kind of PDA or smartphone, maybe, though by the casual way she'd left it in her purse, not nearly as expensive as the ones he was familiar with. Then again, that was how technology worked; things that were expensive now would be fairly cheap a few years down the road. Nothing about her clothes or hairstyle had looked unusual, so styles hadn't changed a lot.
He wasn't worried about what had happened to him. For all the bandages and splints, Marcy had been too calm for him to be at death's door. Besides, if it had been really serious, Sam would have been there. No matter how touchy Marcy's relationship with Sam was, she'd make sure of that.
If it had been a wreck, though- If he'd wrecked Bruce, Marcy wouldn't have been that calm, she'd be strangling him with an IV line. Maybe at some point he got his own car? Or Sam decided he didn't want the Impala anymore?
God, I hope I didn't get that wrecking my car. I don't know if I can rebuild her again.
If he had wrecked a car-well, it wouldn't be the first time. Why would he need to be warned about it? That was...normal. Rather refreshingly normal, given his history. And Marcy praying-well, she did that. It was what religious people did. He didn't get it, but it was important to her, like the crappy hair metal. Hell, she was better about the religion than she was the music, because they both agreed that the driver picked. Which meant she'd never nag him to convert, but also that he would never escape the damn Enuff Z'nuff.
And then he remembered the rosary Marcy had used.
Son of a bitch.
This was his life now. Not only was he stuck with Sam's visions, they were about Christmas presents.
"Fine," he muttered, "have it your way." He pulled the rosary out of the case and tucked it safely underneath the counter until he had a chance to talk to Anita.
***
Dean woke up to something instrumental, Christmasy, and guitar-heavy, with Marcy singing wordlessly along-which probably explained why he'd been dreaming about a banshee. "Merry Christmas, sleepyhead," she said.
Belatedly, he realized that it was daylight-and by the light, probably near noon, if not later. "Well, I was up late," he said, pushing himself up. He'd waited up for her to get home, and then they'd watched Die Hard by the light of the Christmas tree...and then they'd done other things by the Christmas lights. "What are you doing?"
"Getting ready."
If he wasn't mistaken, she was packing. Not laying out clothes for him to wear, the way she sometimes did if she got bored, but actually packing. "For what?"
"Mama's."
Dean squinted, just in case his eyes were still blurred by sleep, but nothing changed. She was packing his duffel. Those were his socks. "Okay, either you think I'm going to need a week's worth of clothes to go eat dinner at your mom's, or I did something to really piss you off."
"Well, she does go overboard on the desserts at Christmas," Marcy said, entirely too cheerfully, "and that was before you joined the family. The whole den is probably a pie bar this year."
Only if he was lucky. "How many recipes can she have?"
Marcy raised an eyebrow. "My mother?"
Belatedly, he remembered the Wall of Cookbooks. Anne's house possibly had more cookbooks than spoons, and there were three drawers of those in the kitchen. "Forget I said that." He sat up. "Really, though, why are-"
"It's part of your present. But I can't give you the whole thing till after Mama's."
Ah. She must be plotting a surprise trip. If he hadn't been home all day yesterday, she probably would have managed to get him packed up without him noticing. "Okay." She'd talked about going up to the mountains for a weekend trip before the wedding, so maybe that was it. It wouldn't surprise him a bit if the Reynoldses owned a ski lodge or mountain resort or twelve somewhere.
But speaking of presents....
He reached into his nightstand drawer, where he'd hidden it, and pulled out the little box. "Merry Christmas."
"Black paper?" she asked, and her mouth twitched.
"It has snowflakes," he pointed out. "That makes it Christmasy." Anita had done the wrapping, after she caught him trying to do it. Once she stopped laughing.
Marcy did laugh. "I can't fault that logic," she said, and momentarily abandoned the packing to hop up on the bed. "Why didn't you put it under the tree?"
He blinked. "I didn't think about it," he admitted, earning himself another round of laughter. "Just open it, will you?"
She slid her nails under Anita's neat tape and pulled off the paper, exposing the little wooden keepsake box Anita had found for him. "You got me a box?"
"I thought you needed one," he retorted. "Open it already."
Despite Anita's urgings, and the best attempts of her engraver friend, he'd gone for simple-just the date. Putting Marcy's name on it had seemed ridiculous, since she was going to be changing it in two months, and putting her new name just seemed like it was daring things to go wrong. If she wanted more added, they could get it done later.
She pried the box open, and then just sat there with her mouth open, staring.
"Marce?" he finally asked. He'd screwed up somehow, he must have-
"Where did you find this?" she whispered, holding it up so that the crucifix dangled free. The beads caught the daylight in flashes of blood-red. "Dean-"
"It was mixed in with the jewelry at the store," he said, trying to head off any protest about him spending too much money. "I cleaned and cleansed it, so no dead people are still attached to it, and your uncle blessed it, and your dad's jeweler friend said the beads are real garnets and-"
"You got me a rosary." She sounded stunned.
"I know Lourdes is your favorite, and you didn't have one with her on it-"
"You actually pay that much attention to my rosaries?" she interrupted. "Dean, you don't even believe in God-"
"No, but you do." Shit. That was quite possibly the lamest thing he'd ever said.
Lame enough to make her cry, apparently, since her eyes were suddenly very bright. Dammit. He should've just ignored that stupid vision and begged Third to let him borrow the garage-
She actually lunged at him, rosary clutched tight in her hand, and knocked him over with a kiss. "I love you, Dean Winchester."
"Mmph?" he managed, intelligently.
"This is perfect," she said, "and I'm not bullshitting you. That you'd give me this, when you don't even- My God, you are a wonderful man."
"You know, you really need higher standards."
"My standards are plenty high," she retorted, and kissed him again, like she was trying to prove it. "And as much as I would like to say 'thank you' the old-fashioned way, we have to be at Mama's in an hour."
"We could tell her Bruce broke down," he suggested. Stay here with Marcy or tackle the crowd at Anne's. Not much of a decision, as far as he was concerned.
"Any other day, I'd think about it. Not on Christmas, though." She sighed, and slid off the bed. "C'mon, get dressed and finish packing, and I'll start loading things up."
Dean pushed himself up, snagged a pair of socks from the half-packed duffel, then reached for his braces. He might as well get the hard part done before he got out of bed. It was easier to get around after he had the things on than before.
Marcy tossed the wrapping paper and put the box in her nightstand-but, he noticed, she didn't put the rosary back in it. No, it went straight into her pocket, her fingers lingering over the beads like she wanted to try it out right then. The same way she ran her hand over Bruce's hood sometimes, or that silver flask of her grandfather's.
Whatever it was exactly that he'd gotten in that blood-transfer from Sam, the visions clearly knew what they were doing.
***
Third and Anne lived far enough out that the quickest route back into the city was usually the interstate, although if they weren't in a particular hurry, Marcy was just as likely to take some twisty back way. So Dean wasn't really paying attention when they made the turn onto I-85.
At least, not until they hit Kannapolis.
"I think we took a wrong turn," he said, wondering just how much chocolate she'd had. He'd only seen her with one piece of cake, but that didn't mean she hadn't raided the truffles. She'd had some punch at one point, but that should have worn off by now.
She grinned. "No, we didn't."
"Then why are we going north?"
"Because this is your present. Merry Christmas, Dean."
He waited a second, but got no further explanation. "Okay, I don't get it."
"We're going to New Paltz. Sarah's hosting us."
"What?"
"So you can have quality time with your brother." He blinked. "We were going to leave tomorrow, but luckily I remembered that you're scared of airplanes before I bought the tickets."
"Airplanes are fine-"
"As long as they're on the ground?"
"Yeah, well, you wrestle a demon at ten thousand feet and see how much you love flying." She laughed. "Marcy, it- I love the thought, I do, it's just-"
"Worried me and Sam will kill each other?"
"It crossed my mind." Threats from Jo, a visit and lecture from Bobby, and another lecture from Ellen, plus whatever Sarah had been dishing out-and the fact that Dean didn't answer the phone for a couple of weeks-had made Sam back down and apologize, and he'd agreed to be best man, but that didn't mean he approved. The only reason this wasn't more of a mess was that it wasn't personal-Sam and Marcy didn't hate each other, they were clashing about the best way to take care of Dean.
"I'm way ahead of you," she said, giving him the grin that meant he was in deep trouble. "Sarah's going to help with distractions in the evenings, and I have a daytime schedule that would make a tour guide weep. I'm meeting old friends, I've got things to buy for the wedding, there's an architect Dad recommended I talk to-"
"Daytime?" he interrupted, catching the important word. If that was only her daytime schedule, and Sarah was helping with evening distractions, was she going to be there at night? Much as he'd like to spend some time with Sam-he'd only seen his brother once since Sam headed for New York, and they'd spent most of those few days screaming at each other-he wasn't willing to give up Marcy to do it, not even for a week. Not just yet, anyway. If nothing else, Sam was bound to take it the wrong way.
"My generosity has its limits," she said, a little sharply, "and I am not giving you up for my entire vacation. He can put up with a few awkward soon-to-be-family meals. Anyway, you and Sam be brothers for a little while. Play in the snow, get drunk, watch movies, whatever. See if you can convince him I'm not some kind of soul-sucking brother-stealing harpy."
"I don't think he thinks you suck souls," Dean said dryly, making her laugh. "Does Sam know about this?"
"Not that I know of. I think Sarah wanted to surprise him."
Sam was going to be surprised, all right. Sam was probably expecting a nice, quiet week off with Sarah.
That was when he realized what this really was. Sure, it was partly brother time-but it was also Marcy offering to meet Sam halfway to try to fix this, even though she was still pissed off at him, and had every right to be. She could have insisted on staying at a hotel rather than at Sarah's, could have refused to have any interaction with Sam at all, even with Dean and Sarah to buffer them, and Dean wouldn't have argued-and she knew he wouldn't.
She could have just left it alone, but she wanted to fix it. For him.
"I don't deserve you," he said quietly.
"Bullshit," his loving fiancée answered promptly, and reached for the radio.