Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam gets a phone call Christmas morning, while he’s in the middle of opening presents with Jess; it’s Andy Gallagher. “Dude,” Andy says, “I’m sorry to bother you, but seriously, you’ve got to get her to stop.”

Sam steps out of the room, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ava?” he asks, though he already knows.

“Do you know how many fruit baskets arrived today? Twelve, Sam. Twelve. I live in a van. I have a mini fridge. What am I supposed to do with twelve fruit baskets?”

“Make fruit salad?” Sam suggests, glancing back over his shoulder and shooting Jessica an apologetic look.

“One of them’s a miniature pear tree, Sam. With a tiny fake partridge in it. Tracey says I should be grateful it wasn’t a real, dead partridge cocooned in saran wrap. That’s a seriously weird thing to have to be grateful for, don’t you think?”

Sam thinks: you should be grateful to be alive. But he says, “I’ll call Henriksen again and get him to tell her to quit it. Okay? But Andy…I know it’s annoying, but she’s really just trying to show you that she’s sorry. Because she is.”

Sam can hear Andy let out a sigh, and when he speaks again, his voice is lower, calmer. “I know. And I get that, y’know, Hallmark doesn’t exactly make a card for this kind of situation.”

Too bad, Sam thinks: sales of “I’m Sorry I Killed You” cards would have seen a big upswing this past year.

Andy sighs again: Sam can picture him running a nervous hand through his hair, at twenty-four looking weirdly young to Sam now, never mind that they were both born the same year. “I miss having mind control powers, man.”

“I hear you,” Sam lies. “Try to have a nice Christmas, okay?”

“Yeah, you, too,” Andy says. After a moment, he finishes the call with, “And seriously. Thanks again.”

I didn’t do anything, Sam thinks, closing the phone with a click. Slipping it back into his pocket, he turns around. Jessica’s still sitting on the floor, in front of their tiny tree; she’s wearing the look of slight apprehension that in seven months hasn’t quite left her eyes. “You okay?” she asks.

Sam wants to bury his hands in her hair and kiss the tops of her eyelids and hold her and never let her go.

Instead, he kneels gently at her side and resumes feigning interest in the galley of their new novel that Chuck and Becky sent. (It’s about horny gay space pirates or something. Sam doesn’t really want to know.)

“Everything’s fine,” he says.

---

The truth of it is, Sam cannot think of a single better thing that Dean could have asked for; nevertheless, he feels his brother may have seriously underestimated the weirdness factor.

When they came face to face with God—and Sam can still not fully process the memory; it seems like something that happened in a dream he had while severely intoxicated, and also possibly suffering from a head injury—but when It happened, Sam froze. Or rather, his utter awe and complete reverence made him go slack; he stared, pliant and limp, when God said—in an entirely unassuming, unimpressive voice—“You have been of great service. You deserve a reward.”

This is not an exact quote: due to the dreamlike quality of his remembrance, Sam can’t actually recall the precise words. (Yup: God spoke to him, and when Sam retells the story, he needs to paraphrase. This, he figures, explains a lot about the Bible.) Dean’s response, however, he remembers perfectly. “Oh yeah?” his brother demanded, seriously violating God’s personal space. “How about bringing back to life every single person who died thanks to this stupid, pointless little squabble your kids started because Daddy didn’t love them enough?”

Only Dean.

Sam does remember thinking that: only his brother, such an obedient little soldier all his life, could come face to face with the biggest general of them all and choose that moment to throw the chain of command completely out the window.

Sam had pretty much never loved Dean more. He was man enough to admit it (at least in the privacy of his own head): he had watched his big brother stare down God, listened to him demand back every single life that had been stolen in the war between Heaven and Hell, and all Sam had been able to think was that he loved Dean a crazy amount, and that he hoped Dean got to be happy, that he got everything he wanted and more.

And for once in his life, Dean got exactly what he wanted. Word for word.

---

Somehow, despite Sam taking his best stab at fashionable lateness, he and Jess are still the first to arrive at his grandparents’ house. The concept, like the face of God, is still difficult for Sam to process: he has grandparents. Whose house he can go to. Bearing a dish of Jessica’s German beans, no less.

Grandma—nope, still too weird; to keep from feeling like he’s having a total out-of-body experience, he has to think of her as Deanna, and her husband as Samuel (though that’s honestly not much better). Anyway, Deanna opens the door; she’s wearing a red sweater and tan slacks and looks much sleeker and chicer than most TV grandmas, which is Sam’s only basis for comparison. She’s also holding a large kitchen knife with an ease that speaks of many years’ training and comfort. “Haha, oops,” she says, when she sees Sam, and casually tucks the blade away in a sheath hidden beneath the holly-red wool.

This, Sam thinks, is his family.

He is conscious of Jessica standing beside him, full of thoughts of what she must be thinking—a desperate desire for her own family, which she has not yet been able to successfully reunite with; bitterness that she came back from the dead only to wind up stuck with this—when Deanna pulls him into a hug. It is awkward, because Sam is an awkward hugger in general, and also because of the casserole dish. But, “We’re so glad you came!” Deanna enthuses, undeterred. “Jessica, it’s so nice to see you again. You look lovely. Come inside, both of you. Let me take your coat.”

Sam bobs awkwardly through these basic social interactions; he’d gotten good at this at Stanford, he remembers—trained himself, practiced. But whether it’s time or experience brought to bear, it comes less easily for him now, even when the people involved are his own flesh and blood.

He shrugs off his coat and hands it to Deanna, who shoves it in a closet that also appears to contain several sharpened wood stakes and a cracked plastic snowman. Raising his eyebrow at that, he turns back around only to be confronted with his namesake lurking in the foyer. “Sam,” Samuel acknowledges with a nod.

“Sir,” Sam manages.

Unfortunately that’s all he’s got. The silence stretches, awkward and thick. Sam is forced to acknowledge the fact that he barely knows these people; that before this year they have never been part of his life, despite the tenuous ties of blood.

“The house looks fantastic,” Jessica speaks up. Thank god—no, literally, thank God—for Jess. “It’s amazing what you’ve done with it in such a short time.”

“Thank you,” Deanna says with a smile. “It’s been interesting getting to decorate with an eye toward ‘modern’ design.”

Deanna and Jessica start to talk about ’70s fashion vs. the post-millennium look. Sam shifts his feet and looks at Samuel; he feels like there ought to be something for them to discuss, but Sam has never been much for the type of trying-too-hard ‘manly’ boasting that most hunters seem to like to engage in. Jess is saying something about cultural mores influencing aesthetics, and that’s history, that’s psychology, and that’s all a whole lot more interesting to Sam. Sam figures that just like his father, Samuel must sense this; his stony-faced silence is obviously one of disapproval.

Sam is about to give in and ask his grandfather if he’s killed anything particularly nasty lately when there’s the blessed sound of a knock on the door. Sam, perhaps rudely, rushes forward to do the honors, praying that it’ll be his brother. But God’s clearly returned to retirement: instead his parents are standing there, his mom radiating joy, his dad standing back a ways, hands tucked into his pockets in a manner that suggests either hostility or shyness. Despite his disappointment that he won’t have Dean’s familiar presence to fall back upon, Sam feels his chest constrict. The hug he lets his mom sweep him into is much less awkward than what he’s used to.

He and his dad manage a firm handshake and a fond shoulder pat, which is pretty good for them, too.

Relieved of his part in the welcoming ceremony, Sam is free to turn around and watch the rest of it unfold. His mom and Deanna hug warmly; Mary then turns and gives her father a slightly more awkward embrace, followed by a tentative kiss on the cheek. Samuel and Deanna seem slightly in awe of her, their grown daughter. She was only Jess’ age when they died, Sam thinks, and wonders if it’s equally weird for them to see the two young women lightly embrace, their blonde hair mingling like shafts of sunlight.

Weirder still must be John, who’s now closer to Mary’s parents’ ages than he is to their daughter’s, and who is nothing like the man they knew. Of all his resurrected relatives, it’s his dad with whom it’s been easiest for Sam to fall back into familiar patterns, which is both good and bad; when he’s seen John over the last few months, post-apocalypse, he’s seemed calmer, less driven, but still the man Sam remembers, who Sam wouldn’t live with again if you paid him a billion dollars and got the little discrepancies with his law school applications straightened out. (Ash is trying, but as he likes to point out, “Just because I came back from the dead doesn’t mean I can work miracles.”) Sam watches John and Samuel exchange gruff hellos, and the way they make no show of hiding the fact that, even after all these months, they’re still sizing each other up is almost funny. Almost. If Dean were here it would be, Sam thinks.

And seriously, where the hell is his brother?

---

At some point in the chaos, Sam lost track of Dean. They’d been side by side when God had vanished in a sizzling lightning-crack snap, blinking into the light together as they slowly realized that the field where they were standing was now empty of discarded angelic and demonic vessels and instead full of people, people yawning and stretching and standing up. Far more people than had formed the casualties of the battle: hundreds, thousands, gasping awake and staring up at the pearly morning sky.

Sam and Dean had been right next to each other, their jaws hanging loose with awe, when a familiar voice had shouted, “Sam! Dean!” Sam turned in time to see his brother get socked in the shoulder. It didn’t look like it was a very hard punch, as Dean’s face broke out into an expression of pure delight. “What did you guys do this time?” Jo asked, grinning at them. She was wearing the outfit she had died in, Sam realized, but her face looked clean and clear of pain as she turned it up toward the sky. “Wow,” she breathed.

Dean grabbed her and hugged her fiercely, which was what Sam had been about to do. He rocked back on his heels and glanced over his shoulder only to see Jake Talley staring back at him. Sam was reaching for his knife before he had time to blink, but the other man—boy, really, Jesus—had already bowed his head and turned away. Sam let him fade into the crowd, feeling something in his chest tighten or loosen or—he didn’t even know. It was yet another thing he couldn’t quite process.

“Dean Winchester, just what do you think you’re doing?”

Sam glanced back and saw Dean guiltily stop trying to crush the newly-given life out of Jo and step back. He was immediately swept up into a much sharper, more business-like embrace that ended with Ellen thwapping the back of his head. Sam felt a startled laugh escape his lips. “I’m afraid to ask how you boys managed this, and I know a few things about gift horses and mouths, so.” Ellen paused, her voice cracking a bit. “Joanna Beth,” she said.

“Mom.”

Sam would have felt embarrassed that his eyes were a little moist, but Dean was full-on mopping at his cheeks; and he got called a girl? Really?

Ellen and Jo broke away from each other, grinning, but much more composed. “Don’t I get a hug?” Sam found himself asking, petulantly.

Okay, maybe getting called a girl was occasionally somewhat justified.

“Why, Sam, all you had to do was ask,” Ellen said.

They double-teamed him. It was, as Sam usually found such things, kind of uncomfortable. But good.

Sometime after that, though, he lost Dean. Sam had last seen him talking to Henriksen, who after getting up off the ground and cracking his shoulders, had immediately and confidently stepped into the role of Coordinator of the Newly No Longer Deceased. But then Andy had pulled him around to share a “Yay, not dead!” fist bump, and after that he’d had to try to calm down a gaggle of alternately distressed and near rapturous nuns. He was having a very awkward conversation with a very confused but friendly guy who also unfortunately bore the face Sam associated the most strongly with the Yellow-Eyed Demon when a voice from behind him said, “Sam?”

For several long moments, Sam didn’t turn. He didn’t want to look, to turn around and once again be confronted with such a beautiful, seductive lie. But his willpower was ultimately no better than Orpheus’: he turned and he looked.

There was Jessica and there she stayed, standing before him with her lip between her teeth. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and her feet were bare beneath the short white nightgown she was wearing, a familiar tan trench coat draped over her shoulders.

And thus Sam’s first words to his newly resurrected girlfriend were, “Where did you get that coat?”

In fairness, Jess’ greeting wasn’t much better. “Wow, you really filled out,” she said at almost the same time. In the silence that followed their overlapping words they stared at each other. Then stumbling, awkward, they began to laugh.

“A nice man gave it to me,” Jessica said after a minute, wiping the tears from her eyes. “He said I looked like I could catch my death. Sam,” she said, suddenly, sobering. “I died.”

“Jess,” Sam could only say, “Jess...”

There were still several feet between them. The distance felt impossible to cross. Sam’s arms hung impotently at his sides. He couldn’t think of a single thing to do or to say, nothing that could explain, that could make it all right.

Jessica turned her head and looked up at the brightening sky, much as Jo had. The coat hung off her small frame like a cape. “I can tell time has passed but not how much,” she said. Her gaze drifted down to the people moving all around, many finding each other, exchanging embraces or harsh words; some lost in their own private worlds. “I feel like Miranda after the tempest.”

“I missed you,” Sam managed finally. “Jess, I missed you so much.”

“And what have I missed?” she asked.

Before he could even begin to contemplate an answer, a pair of hands were clapped down over his eyes. “Guess who?”

Sam, distracted, didn’t get to put quite the pleasure he would have liked into his answer. “Pamela?”

“You got it, grumpy!” Pamela slid around to face him, unfortunately choosing to pinch his ass on the way. But her eyes were bright and playful and, you know, present in her skull, so he couldn’t really begrudge her that one. Even though it had caused Jess to cock her eyebrow at him.

“Well look at you!” Pamela was saying. “I guess those big muscles and that surly attitude were enough to save the world after all. And then some,” she added, glancing around. “How exactly did you swing the class reunion?”

“It was Dean,” Sam was more than willing to admit. “Pamela, I’m so happy to see you, but I kind of need to...”

Pamela was nodding—and winking—her understanding, but Jess stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. Sam started at the touch—her slim, cool hand. “It’s okay, Sam,” she said. “I’m glad you’re being reunited with your friends. I’d like to meet them, actually, if...”

Sam nodded, dumbly.

Pamela, much more relaxed, grinned and stuck out her hand. “Pamela Barnes,” she said. “Demon knifed me in the stomach.”

“Jessica Moore,” said Jess, with little more than a raised eyebrow. “I’m still not entirely sure.”

“How do you know Sam?” Pamela asked.

“Oh, Sam and I go way back.” And Jessica smiled at him, fond and sad.

“Jess is my girlfriend,” Sam said loudly, impulsively. Presumptuously, he knew. “I mean...”

Before he could pull his foot the rest of the way out of his mouth, he finally caught sight of Dean. His brother was standing about a hundred yards away, talking to Castiel, unsurprisingly. The angel looked weirdly small and delicate without his trench coat on, and whatever he was saying was clearly not making Dean very happy. He wasn’t frowning, but Sam could tell that there was something off about Dean’s body language, and he was standing a lot farther away from Castiel than he usually did. Stranger still, as Sam watched, Dean stretched out his hand and gave Castiel’s a firm shake before turning and striding toward Sam with a frown now visible on his face.

He was intercepted briefly by Pamela, and the wide, open smile that was much less familiar to Sam than his brother’s scowl once again made an appearance. Having also reacquainted her palm with Dean’s ass, Pamela waved goodbye and Sam raised a hand absently in return. He watched as Dean trudged the rest of the way over.

“Everything all right with Cas?” he asked, because Dean’s problems seemed more palatable than his own.

“Cas?” Dean asked, confused. He followed Sam’s gaze and comprehension dawned with a sigh. “That’s Jimmy,” Dean said. “You seriously can’t tell?”

“Oh,” Sam said. He should have guessed: besides his encounter with not-Yellow Eyes earlier, he’d also let Uriel’s spitting image borrow his cell phone so he could call his mother. (This despite Henriksen’s request that the contacting of loved ones be curtailed until a system less likely to freak out large portions of the populace could be arranged. On balance, Sam apparently found a guy who just looked like Uriel scary enough to warrant an exception.)

“I gave him Amelia and Claire’s new address,” Dean said, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, the angle of his shoulders sharp. “So that’s good, I guess.”

Dean seemed angry. Sam stared at him, puzzled, and was about to open his mouth and ask several deeply probing questions when Dean did a double take. “Jess!” he said, some warmth returning to his face. “You found Jess.” When he turned to Sam he was beaming, though the grin didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Sam had the pleasure of reintroducing his brother and his (maybe? kind of? this was awkward) girlfriend. Jess seemed as friendly and enthusiastic to make Dean’s acquaintance as he remembered—the memory made Sam’s chest hurt—though on Dean’s part there was rather a lot less leering this time around. Instead of staring at Jess’ chest, Dean’s eyes seemed drawn continually to her shoulders, his smile growing more absent by the second.

By the time Sam spotted his parents coming toward them through the crowd, it was almost anticlimactic. So much had happened that it was almost like he couldn’t feel more than he already had: he was numb from joy rather than from trauma. His mom hugged him and touched his face and she was solid, she was real, and in some ways it felt more hallucinatory than certain hallucinations he’d had.

His parents actually alleviated this problem a bit by almost immediately getting into an angry, hissing fight that was seriously unbefitting the newly not-dead. It kind of brought things back into perspective, however: his parents clearly loved each other, but damn, did they have issues.

Sam was a little embarrassed that Jessica was having to listen to this, so he encouraged her to shuffle a few feet away to where Dean was already standing, frowning down at his phone. Even beneath the coat, Jess was starting to shiver—her feet were bare, duh. He really was a shitty boyfriend, Sam thought, as he crouched down and started to unlace his boots.

“Sam, that’s okay, you really don’t...”

“God fucking dammit,” Dean hissed, shutting his phone with a snap. He stalked away again, but there were people everywhere, so it was kind of pointless. He stalked back.

Sam had tensed: considering recent events, blasphemy seemed particularly ill-advised. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

For a second Dean looked like he was about to tell him, but then his face changed; he composed himself. “Nothing. Nothing. Everything’s amazingly good to the point of being a little creepy, actually. And now Mom and Dad are making out.”

Sam looked in the direction that Dean’s suddenly widened eyes had directed him, then quickly turned his back. Dean did the same. “I didn’t actually need to see that,” Sam said.

“Nope,” said Dean. They stood side by side awkwardly, while Jessica silently laughed at them. “Oh, shit,” Dean said suddenly. “I forgot to call Bobby.”

Even from several feet away, Sam could hear Bobby’s tinny voice through the phone informing Dean that 1) Ellen and Pamela had both already called him, and 2) he and Sam were both idjits. Dean nodded along to the tirade for a few seconds before handing the phone to Sam. “Apologize for me, okay?”

Sam tried. When Bobby had finished venting his frustration—and there was something Sam could have asked for, he thought, something that Dean’s request didn’t cover: Bobby’s legs—and he had extracted a promise that Sam and Dean and the newly-extended Winchester clan would get over to South Dakota as soon as they could, Sam clicked shut the phone and turned back around. He did a double take: Jessica was now wearing Dean’s leather jacket and what looked like a pair of his socks. Sam searched the crowd and caught sight of his brother talking to Ash and Henriksen, a bundle of tan fabric balled up under his arm.

“Did he say anything to you?” Sam asked Jess.

“You obviously have quite the story to tell me, Sam,” Jess said, giving him a knowing look.

Sam ducked his head. “Yeah, I do.”

“Your brother,” Jess said, and Sam looked up again. “He said that they all left.”

Sam turned quickly, staring after Dean.

Jess’ voice was quiet, curious. “Who’s ‘they’?”

---

Deanna clears her throat. “Mary, Jessica, if you two wouldn’t mind, I would love some help in the kitchen.”

Sam’s mother and his girlfriend of course acquiesce, leaving Sam to watch their retreating backs longingly. Don’t leave me, he thinks, feeling pathetic. “Samuel,” Deanna continues, not helping, “why don’t you take the boys into the living room and get started on those hors d’oeuvres?”

Sam thinks his dad looks thrilled to be lumped in with “the boys”—as thrilled as Sam feels to be taking a seat on a couch that’s way too low for someone with legs as long as his. John and Samuel commandeer chairs at either end of the coffee table, leaving Sam in the middle. “Drink?” Samuel asks, after a moment’s silence. Without waiting for an answer, he gets up again. Standing with his back to them at the small wooden bar, he pours three glasses of whiskey. Sam’s, he notices upon being handed it, has by far the least amount of liquid in it—and the most ice.

His father and his grandfather sip their drinks. Sam nibbles at a piece of cheese on a cracker.

“So,” his dad asks after a minute, lifting his chin in Samuel’s direction. “Any good kills lately?”

Sam sinks down in his seat so his knees are up somewhere around his ears. This is going great.

---

“How’d it go?” Dean asked, then seeing Sam’s expression, amended the question. “That good, huh?”

Sam let out a sigh. “Jess is asleep in the car. I just want to check in with Ash and then get out of here. Get her home.” Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Such as it is.”

“They wouldn’t see her?” Dean asked in a low voice.

“Her mom wouldn’t. Her dad made sure to see us so he could call us—Jess especially—a lot of names. Con artists and worse.” Sam took the beer Dean handed him without protest, even though he knew he had to get back on the road soon. “Some people can’t believe the truth even when it’s right in front of them.”

“Yeah, well, some people don’t have our practice,” Dean said, sipping at his own bottle. “Doesn’t excuse it, though. I’m sorry you got douchebags for in-laws, Sammy.”

Sam opened his mouth to correct him, but took another sip of beer instead. He followed Dean through the cool, dark bar and into the back room where Ash and Henriksen had set up shop. Henriksen was perched on a folding table, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Hey,” he said, nodding at Sam. Sam nodded back, a little tentatively. He knew Dean and Victor were like BFFs now—Dean had been showing Henriksen the ropes when they went out hunting, and with Victor’s help, Dean had graduated from copy shop maker of fake IDs to something of a master forger—but he still made Sam a little nervous. The dreams about Lilith and Lucifer were fewer and farther between, but Sam still had nightmares about being caught on the wrong side of the law. And Dean had always been quicker to forgive and forget than Sam.

“Hey, Sam,” Ash said. He seemed in a better mood than the last time Sam had seen him, which was just after Henriksen (with Dean’s help, probably) had cut off Ash’s mullet in his sleep. Sam had unfortunately rolled into town just in time for the fallout, which had involved an epic argument about Ash and Henriksen’s unofficial Resurrected People’s processing and help center. (Ash’s hair was unprofessional! Victor still thought too much like a Fed, and also, he was a jerk! No, Ash was the jerk who left his dirty socks everywhere.) The whole thing made the two of them sound disturbingly like a married couple.

“I got some more transcripts and a couple of mocked up letters of recommendation for you, too,” Ash continued. “Lemme just go find the letterhead Victor made and I’ll print ’em up for you.”

Sam felt Dean give him a light tap on the arm. “I’ve got something for you, too,” he said. “Be right back.” He followed Ash out the door, leaving Sam alone with Henriksen.

“So.” Sam cleared his throat. “You and Ash seemed pretty intent. What are you working on?”

“Oh,” said Henriksen, a little too casually, rolling his body off the table. “It’s nothing.”

But Sam had already come around and was shamelessly studying Ash’s monitor. He frowned. “Isn’t that Ash’s demonic omen-tracking program?” He shot Henriksen a worried look. “You’d think that’d be obsolete.” Since demons were supposed to be gone and all.

Henriksen sighed and folded his arms. “He modified it. We’re keeping an eye out for angelic omens.”

“Why—” Sam started, but Dean chose that moment to reappear. Henriksen’s concerned look—that fell on Dean, then skittered away—finished the conversation for them.

“Here,” Dean said, handing him a stack of postcards and photographs. “Ellen and Jo sent these. All the latest stops on their world tour—I thought you might like to see.”

Sam smiled faintly as he looked through all the shots of mother and daughter mugging for the camera in various exotic locales. He was a little jealous, actually: there were so many places he would like to go, that he had never been. But he had other responsibilities, and he didn’t regret them.

Ash came back with the stack of printouts for Sam, which Sam glanced at briefly, feeling somewhat pessimistic that they’d do the trick. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.”

Dean clearly looked like he wanted to ask Sam to stay for a bit, but he didn’t, and Sam had Jess waiting in the car. She didn’t need to wake up alone, on top of everything else today.

As he started for the door, however, Dean did call out, “Hey.”

Sam turned.

Dean was leaning against the table, attempting to look casual and not having a lot of success. “Mom was talking about maybe doing a family Christmas this year, at, uh. Grandma and Grandpa’s?” The familial terms came out a question. Dean ploughed on. “Any interest?”

Sam hesitated. “You’ll be there, right?”

“Dude,” Dean said, grinning easier. “Mom said Grandma Deanna is making four kinds of pie. I’ll be the first one there.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said.

---

The second Sam hears the familiar purr of the Impala’s engine, he’s out of his seat like a shot. On some level, he knows he’s way too excited to see someone he saw every damn day (with some notable exceptions) for five years. But now all he can think is, Dean is here! Instead of staring awkwardly into space, he can talk to Dean! Not only that, with just his presence, Dean can take some of the heat off of him. Dean, loud and brash and inappropriate, can always be counted on to steal the attention of a room.

This turns out to be a remarkably prescient thought. Because the second Sam opens the door, it becomes apparent that Dean is not alone.

Sam blinks in confusion at the figure standing behind his brother on the stoop, wearing an only slightly more contained version of Dean’s shit-eating grin. The face is familiar even if the expression is not, but... “Sammy!” Dean croons before Sam can process any further than that. “Santa’s here!” He slaps a bottle of champagne into Sam’s hand. “From Victor,” he explains, using his now free hand to pat Sam on the shoulder as he pushes, rosy-cheeked and grinning, into the entry hall. “Don’t drink it all at once.”

Sam stares at him, glances back toward the man following on his heels, then ducks his head and returns his gaze to Dean. “You brought Jimmy?” he asks in a low voice, not bothering to hide his confusion.

Dean barks a laugh. “Dude. You seriously can’t tell?”

And so Sam’s head swivels back the other way again. The man in question is level with him now. “Hello, Sam,” he says, simply.

“Cas?”

“Merry Christmas,” Castiel says.

Sam is still turning this information in his head as the foyer begins to fill with people. Dean fumbles through the many and various necessary greetings without much grace but with no real sign of discomfort. The conversation buzzes along pleasantly until almost all it once it dies down to a hush as everyone’s eyes swivel to Castiel. “Dean,” Mom asks, while Cas continues to take the onslaught of stares calmly. “You brought a friend?”

Dean, if anything, grins even wider. He stretches out a hand and without turning snags Cas by the sleeve and hauls him closer. “This is Cas. He’s the reason I was so damn late, so you can all blame him,” he explains, beaming.

“My apologies,” Castiel says, with a small bow of his head. “My arrival was unexpected.”

“Well, I’m glad you could join us,” Deanna says after only a moment’s silence. “I’ll just go grab an extra plate.”

She slips out one door, and a moment later, Samuel stalks out the other, back toward the living room, shaking his head. The rest of them stay frozen in an odd—and to Sam, awkward—tableau. His parents exchange a look.

It’s Jessica who speaks first, though. She steps closer and smiles up at Cas. “Didn’t you lend me your coat?”

Castiel looks down at himself, fingering his lapel like the fact that he’s wearing the garment is surprising to him. “No,” he says after a moment. “I’m afraid that was someone else.”

“Speaking of,” Mom says, unfreezing. She strides forward, arm outstretched. “Here, let me take that for you.”

Cas and Dean exchange a look; then Cas slowly peels the coat off his shoulders. It may be the first time, Sam realizes, that he’s seen Cas—as himself—without it. Like the coat, the rest of his clothes don’t fit him very well, and Sam is reminded again of Jimmy and his tidy house and his ill-fitting suits.

He draws Dean swiftly aside. “Look,” he whispers, finding this hard to say in the face of Dean’s grin. “I’m glad Cas is back, but Dean. You let him possess Jimmy? On Christmas?”

Dean, as part of a habit that Sam is finding increasingly infuriating, laughs again. “Cas,” he calls over his shoulder. “Reassure Sammy that it’s all you in there.”

Castiel turns to face them. There is something about his expression that Sam would almost describe as wry.

“It is all me in here,” he says. “I can assure you, Jimmy Novak is safe with his family.”

Sam can feel his father’s eyes on him. “You want to catch me up, boys?”

He looks up, slightly flushed, in time to see his mom roll her eyes. “What John means to say is, how did you two meet?”

Dean meets Mom’s smile with one of his own, wide and almost innocent. He reaches out and slaps Cas’ arm casually, but instead of letting his hand fall back to his side, it lingers.

“Mom,” he says, “remember how you used to tell me that there were angels watching over me?”

Chapter Text

The news that an angel walks among them is taken by everyone pretty calmly, although Dad and Samuel seem a little suspicious of Cas. Of course, they’re like that with everyone, so the revelation is actually pretty low-impact. Having gotten the basic rundown of the apocalypse from Dean or Bobby or Sam himself, everyone present was already aware that heavenly powers are (or were) as real as demonic ones; in the face of everything else that had happened, meeting Cas—especially Cas at his most friendly, unassuming, and Holy Tax Accountant-like—was probably mostly underwhelming.

Much more drama, for example, seems to go into the issue of who should slice the Christmas ham: Samuel or Dad. Sam is so sick of this alpha male bullshit (especially now that he’s bigger than both of them and could probably take them both, too) but in this context, with Dean laughing and exchanging significant looks with Castiel at the other end of the table and Jessica beside him, biting her lip...well, okay—it’s actually kind of hilarious.

“Oh for— Dad, give me the knife.” Mom’s voice is level but firm. Samuel looks up in surprise, but hands her the knife. “John, sit down.”

Dad sits. Mom slices the ham. Sam gets a big, juicy piece. His mom is officially his hero.

Dean must have expressed a similar sentiment, because over the soft clink of the china plates being passed around, Castiel says, a little too loudly, “Yes, your mother is awesome.”

Jess lets go of her lip and snorts quietly into her napkin.

Sam grins, grins even as he looks across the table into Samuel’s sour lemon expression. And to his surprise, after a moment, his grandfather’s face shifts: his lips spreading, the corners turning up in a sly smile.

It’s a little less awkward after that.

A little. The conversation is still weird, a mix of them all trying to behave like a normal family—which they suck at, and which they are not—and the usual hunter talk, which in this setting seems wildly inappropriate. Or it does until Dean starts telling the story of the Christmas they took down those creepy-ass pagan gods, and Sam finds himself getting sucked into the tale: they killed the evil Cleavers with a Christmas tree. They are badass. And the theological ramifications of modern pagan idolatry are fascinating, too.

Sam is nodding along as Dean, in response to a question from Deanna, details the ingredients in the ritual they stopped the deities from completing when he becomes newly conscious of Jessica at his side. He is apparently smiling at the memory of an interrupted ritual sacrifice and getting his fingernail bloodily ripped out and stabbing a couple of people-shaped things through the heart with a tree branch—and Jess is right there. He feels his spine stiffen; he is almost afraid to look over. So when Jess takes his hand he nearly jumps out of his skin—yeah, he’s badass all right. He flushes and glances down. She’s running her thumb over his fingers, gently stroking them—a cool, reassuring touch. His shoulders relax almost as if they’re afraid to. When he finally brings himself to look at her face, there is none of the judgement he was terrified he’d find in her eyes. “Hey,” she says quietly.

“Hey.” He manages not to sound too choked.

“I’m glad I know you,” Jess says.

Sam can’t stop himself from shifting their hands, from squeezing hers so tightly. His heart feels like it’s being squeezed too.

It’s the best feeling ever.

---

At some point during the dessert course, Sam remembers that there was that bit of banshee lore that he’d wanted to ask Dean about. “Dean,” he calls down to the other end of the table, cutting through a very odd conversation Jess and Samuel are having about Albert Camus. (Seriously?) “Dean?”

Dean doesn’t answer. Deanna is leaning so far forward to participate in whatever boisterous conversation she and Sam’s parents are having that Sam has to crane his neck a bit to see around her. Dean’s own neck appears to be bent; at first Sam thinks that the reason he’s oblivious to Sam’s prodding is that he’s simply too involved with his pie. But then Sam sees that his hands are empty: his fork rests, forgotten, on the edge of his mostly-full plate. The curve of his neck is reflected by the answering curve of Castiel’s. At a table of eight people, they seem to have carved out a space where it’s just the two of them.

Sam feels his eyebrows arch up to hang out with his bangs. It’s not what it looks like, he knows—after all these months, Dean is just happy to see his friend again. Cas is his friend. The fact that Dean invited his friend to a family dinner—a family dinner that’s otherwise all couples—just means that Dean is socially inept, and not...anything else. Right.

Sam stares at the private little smile on his brother’s face, at the crow’s feet dancing merrily at the corners of his eyes. He’s pretty sure, anyway.

As if in response, Dean immediately decides to add a check mark to the “socially inept” column. His cell phone—which he has apparently brought to the table, for Christmas dinner—goes off loudly, and rather than looking sheepish and swiftly shutting it off, he actually answers it. “Hey, Bobby! Feliz Navidad! ... You bet I’m multilingual, I’ve even been called a cunning...wait a second, I’m sitting next to my grandma.”

As Sam puts his face in his hands and Deanna throws back her head and laughs, Dean gets up and walks just outside the door, where he is almost equally audible. “Yeah, very nice, I already knew you spoke Japanese. Bet you can’t say it in Enochian, though ... Hey Cas, how do you say ‘Merry Christmas’ in Enochian?” Cas’ mouth quirks as he intones something both impressive and vaguely goofy sounding. Dean repeats it into the phone—judging from Cas’ expression, not quite correctly. “Yeah, Cas is back,” Dean tells Bobby, and even across the room, in profile, Sam can see his whole face light up.

His expression falls somewhat at whatever Bobby says next. He turns so that his back’s toward them, and for the first time during this little performance, Sam has to strain to hear Dean’s side of the conversation. “No, I don’t think so. He’s kind of...grounded. I’m sorry, Bobby.”

Bobby talks for a while. Mom and Deanna glance at each other like they’re not sure whether or not they should start up a fake, covering conversation—one of those ones that begins with a falsely bright, “So!”

Sam’s still much more interested in the telephone call, however. “How’s Pamela?” Dean asks. “She told me she had this whole regimen worked out, she’s not riding you too hard is— Gross, Bobby!”

Sam laughs. A bit louder than he intended to.

“Yeah, that was Sam,” Dean says, turning around. “He wants to talk to you,” he adds, reaching out with the phone.

Dad intercepts it. “You’re interrupting my family dinner, you son of a bitch,” he growls into Dean’s cell, but he follows it with a laugh that Sam still finds alarming, seeing as it isn’t drowning in bitterness.

John takes the phone a much more polite distance away from the table, so Sam can’t hear much more than the occasionally bark of not-depressive laughter punctuated by swearing. Belatedly he notices that Deanna’s on her feet, collecting the dirty dishes. Sam rises hastily and takes the stack of plates from her. “Let me.”

“You don’t have to—” Deanna protests, reaching to reclaim the plates, and for a few seconds they move back and forth like they are sparring. “No, I insist,” Sam says finally, definitively. “You cooked.”

Deanna demurs, and Sam, who has busboy experience he’s currently excluding from his semi-faked resumé, loads himself up. When he tries to sneak Dean’s plate away from him, he gets his hand slapped for his trouble. Sam rolls his eyes and starts toward the kitchen. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Dean did not take his eyes away from Castiel the entire time.

In the kitchen, Sam deposits his load and fills the sink. Despite Samuel’s much-bragged-about “investments”—he’d had eleven different bank accounts under various false names, all accruing interest for the thirty-plus years he’d been dead (there had originally been fourteen, but Mom had known about three of them and cleaned them out before Sam was born)—when he and Deanna bought this house, they had apparently not bothered to spring for a dishwasher. Sam looks at the mess in front of him and begins to wonder what he’s gotten himself into. Still, he rolls up his sleeves and is just sinking his hands into the warm water (which actually feels kind of good), when he hears the creak of a board being depressed. He looks over his shoulder and is surprised to see Castiel standing in the doorway. Cas is carrying a tower of cups and knives and forks and spoons, looking down at his feet with an expression of soft surprise on his face. Sam smiles. “Even ninjas have their off days,” he says.

Cas brings his stack of glass and silverware the rest of the way into the room and sets it all carefully on the counter. “I would imagine,” he says. “To err is human, after all.”

Sam looks at him. His expression is mild, his eyes curious. He looks...lighter, Sam supposes—no longer weighed down by everything that had happened and was happening. It’s a good look on him: not so gloom and doomy, or so oppressively serious. Sam had never understood why Dean had seemingly liked spending so much time with him when, aside from the occasional flash of levity, Castiel was so dour, so unlike Dean. But then Sam thinks maybe he just never saw the right moments.

Like now, Cas leaning forward, tie dangerously close to dipping into the suds. “May I help?”

“Sure,” Sam says, though he’s a bit curious why Cas is in here, with him, when he could be back out there, with Dean. And, you know, other people. “Thanks. But whoa—first take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves.”

“Oh.” Castiel complies, his movements occasionally over-precise. Sam remembers, during dinner, looking down the table and seeing him carefully slicing his ham into bite-sized baby pieces, Dean next to him cutting off huge slopping chunks and grinning around them as he chewed. In the process of rolling his eyes, Sam had caught Mary’s: her expression fond and a little sad. Sam wondered if she was thinking about everything she had missed, or about everything she now had.

Cas’ forearms are slim and lightly tanned. He plunges them into the sink, blinking a little at the heat. The damn tie nearly takes another dunking. “Tuck that over your shoulder,” Sam says. He wonders if Cas is going to be more of a hindrance than a help.

But besides thinking that uncomfortably damp clothing is something that happens to other people, Cas seems to grasp the dish-washing concept fairly well. He and Sam attend to their work quietly for a little while, standing shoulder to shoulder, elbows occasionally navigating around each other as they work on a particularly soap-resistant pan or dish. It’s not unpleasant. Sam had forgotten that there was something about Cas that was, on its most basic level, quietly reassuring. It’s good that he’s back.

Sam realizes that he hasn’t yet gotten that full story, though. He could ask Dean, but... He leans over, slipping a plate into place on the drying rack. “So you’re back,” Sam says, glancing at Cas before returning his attention to the suds. “For good?”

The steam has sent a pale pink flush to blossom across Castiel’s cheeks. “I believe so, yes.”

Sam nods. He scrubs hard at the big pan Deanna had cooked the ham in. “Where were you all these months?”

“I was in Heaven.” Cas picks at a piece of baked-on grit. “Much has changed. I think it unlikely that angels will continue to meddle in the affairs of men.”

“Oh,” Sam says. Part of him still wishes that the angels would turn themselves around and be angels—the type of angels he used to pray to. But mostly he can’t say he’s sorry they’re gone. “That’s good, I guess.”

Cas nods. “It is necessary, I think. But it means that the gates have been closed, and shall remain closed for the foreseeable future.”

Sam asks the obvious question: “So then how did you get out?”

Castiel looks at him with one of those deep, probing stares that have always made Sam uncomfortable, made him squirm. “I believe I have you to thank for that.”

Sam drops his sponge. “Me?”

Another quiet incline of his head. “My Father—” He says the word with reverence, like a human would say the name of, well, God. “My Father told me that when given your choice of reward, you asked that I be allowed to return to Earth.” Castiel regards him: curious, a little shy, perhaps also a little confused. “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam is flabbergasted. He knows for a fact that he didn’t ask for any such thing. He didn’t ask for anything. He just stood there, slack-jawed, while Dean got all up in God’s face and got them Mom and Dad back, got him Jess back, got them Ellen and Jo and Samuel and Deanna and Pamela and Victor and Ash and Ava and Andy and everyone else. But Sam did nothing. Not to call God a liar or anything, but— Sam did nothing.

“Okay,” says Sam, because the truth is just too confusing right now. “As long as you’re really glad to be here.”

Cas’ cheeks are pink as he scrubs scrubs scrubs with the enthusiastic vigor of someone who apparently really would rather be doing dishes on Earth than reclining on a cloud somewhere in Heaven. “I am,” he says. “I truly am.”

---

Jess comes and finds him as he’s drying his hands and whispers that she’s going to bring the presents in from the car. “Let me help,” he insists, and they dash outside without their jackets, breath steaming white against the night sky. Sam pops the trunk and Jess grabs the bags of wrapped gifts. He takes the heavier one from her, gentlemanlike. They stroll, shivering but slower-paced, up the walk. “How’re you holding up?” he asks.

She stops where she is, frowning a little. “I’m more concerned about you.”

“Huh? No, I mean.” He shifts his bag from hand to hand, needlessly. “With my family and all.”

She tosses her head back, hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I like your family.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He pauses with his hand on the door. “They’re not...”

“Weird?” She reaches out and turns the knob, and his hand with it. “Of course they’re weird. All families are weird. It’s kind of nice, though, right?”

There’s a hint of nostalgia in her voice that makes Sam feel like a bastard, pressing the point. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Just...” Their cheeks are red as they stand whispering in the entryway. “When I used to, you know. About dinners like this. I never thought...”

Jess grins. “That your grandma would answer the door wielding a knife or that your brother would show up an hour late because he got distracted by his cute angel boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I mean, wait. What?”

Jessica’s eyes have gone wide like she’s just realized she’s put her foot somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go, but before they can talk any further, Dean leans his head around the door. “It’s too late, guys. If you got crappy presents you’ll never be able to swap ’em out now. My gifts will totally win.”

This woe is a familiar woe. “Christmas is not a contest, Dean.”

“We’ll see,” Dean says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He darts back into the living room. Jessica shoots Sam a guilty look, Sam sighs, and they follow.

Mom and Cas appear to have already commandeered the couch; they’re talking to each other quietly, Mom’s face wide-eyed and earnest. Dean—oblivious, unconcerned, or just plain rude—plops down between them. After a few seconds’ pause, Mary appears to succumb to some deep-seated impulse, reaching out and ruffling Dean’s hair. “Mom!” he says, appalled, ducking away, actually blushing. Sam, who’d been about to kneel by the tree to scatter his and Jess’ gifts around, has to grip the edge of the fireplace to stop himself from falling over; he’s laughing without sound, so hard that tears spring to his eyes. Jess pats his shoulder and catches a shiny glass ball that one of his flailing limbs nearly knocks over.

“Sorry,” Mom says, completely unapologetic. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Yes,” Cas murmurs, “I can understand the temptation.”

“Oh, don’t you start too,” Dean grouses. He gets up and goes to perch on the arm of the couch, on Cas’ other side, the angel—or former angel, or whatever he is—following his movements with wide blue eyes.

Kneeling beside Sam at the foot of the tree, Jessica folds her arms and looks smug.

“All right, everyone find a seat,” Deanna says, coming into the room with a tray of hot cocoa and fixings—marshmallows and whipped cream and whiskey. “Samuel’s going to play Santa.”

Samuel, fortunately, has not fitted himself out with any sort of costume for this role. Instead he simply shoos Sam and Jess away from the base of the tree and starts selecting gifts and passing them to their recipients. Dean takes a break from trying to fit as many marshmallows as possible into his mouth to accept a carefully wrapped present Sam recognizes as his own. Uh-oh.

Dean was right, though: it is too late. Within seconds his brother has torn away the wrapping to reveal Sam’s gift in all its glory. Say hello to Prom Night Barbie.

“Aww, Sammy, you shouldn’t have!” Dean says, with good humor and marshmallow. But Sam’s thinking he really maybe shouldn’t. When he’d bought the gift it had seemed funny, even sort of sweet, maybe. But now, glancing around the room, he can’t help but worry that his present might be seen as having other, unmeant connotations. But no one else seems all that concerned. “Do I want to know?” Dad asks.

“No,” says Samuel. He hands John a present that is clearly from him. It’s a knife with a bow on it.

“Dad,” Mary sighs.

“Nice,” says John, testing the edge.

“Old favorite of mine,” is Samuel’s sole elaboration.

“Thanks.”

Sam figures this is them bonding.

Cas has opened Dean’s Barbie and is turning it this way and that. “I don’t understand,” he says. “How does she stand up?”

Dean’s hand brushes against Cas’ shoulder, but otherwise he ignores him. “Hey, old man,” he calls to Samuel. “I think it’s your turn to open one.” He points at a particular gift, recognizable as Dean’s because it’s wrapped in the comics section of the newspaper.

It’s Van Halen’s early hits. On cassette. Samuel looks at the shiny new entertainment center at the far end of the room, then back at the outdated technology in his hand, then back at Dean. “Thanks,” he says. Dean beams.

Crumpled paper multiplies across the floor like tribbles. Sam gets a really nice laptop bag and a selection of socks from his parents, which is apparently his mom’s idea of a joke, as Dean gets socks too. (There is something seriously wrong with the sense of humor in this family.) Dean also gets a surprisingly handsome leatherbound edition of The Sirens of Titan. Sam’s not sure how Mom even knew about that—and then he sees Dad catching Dean’s eye, his expression quietly proud. Huh.

Dean gives Sam a copy of The Threesome Handbook with the comment, “Gonna want to keep things spicy,” which makes Sam feel not so sorry about the Barbie anymore. Though the protective bracelet he’s made for Jessica is nice.

When all the gift-giving’s done and Deanna’s starting to feed the discarded paper into the fireplace with a bit too much enthusiasm, Dean says, “Oh!” like he’s just thought of something and reaches into his pocket. “I got you something, too.” He hands a small, hastily wrapped gift to Castiel.

Cas looks up at him, astonished. “When did you find time...?”

Dean flushes a little. “Remember when we stopped for gas?” Of course, Sam thinks: it wouldn’t be a Winchester family Christmas without presents from the Texaco. “Go on, open it,” Dean insists.

Cas slips a finger under the tape, revealing a selection of Virgin Mobile top-up cards. “I don’t want you running out of minutes,” Dean explains, needlessly.

“Thank you,” Cas says, clutching the plastic cards tight. “But Dean...I didn’t get you anything.”

Dean shrugs. The words slip out of his mouth: “I’m just glad you’re here. I mean.” He coughs, and reaches out to top his cocoa up with scotch. For the first time all night, he seems aware of his family’s eyes on him. “Yeah.”

Cas is apparently still oblivious. “Wait,” he says. He slips a hand under his collar and slowly works an object free. “I do have something for you.”

A familiar glint of gold catches Sam’s eye. Cas stretches the leather cord between his hands and Dean bends his neck, lets Cas slip it over the crown of his head and smooth it down over Dean’s chest. “I don’t need it anymore,” he says with a smile.

Dean touches the small metal charm; Sam wonders if it is warm in his hands. “It’s nice to have it back,” he says, glancing briefly at Sam before returning his smile to its true target. Cas beams back at him, and for a second... But no, no, not here, not yet. But soon, Sam figures. Real soon.

Samuel coughs and turns his head, seemingly newly entranced by his Van Halen tape’s liner notes. Mom and Deanna exchange significant looks. Then Mom elbows Dad in the ribs.

“I didn’t say anything!” he protests.

“I know,” says Mom, sweetly.

Sam turns to Jessica. “Okay, I concede the point,” he whispers.

“Ha,” says Jess. “Lawyered.”

---

Sam has just finished loading up the car when Dean stumbles out, laden with his own bags of gifts and leftovers. “Hey,” he calls, opening the Impala’s trunk and carefully spreading everything out atop his cache of weaponry. “Best zombie Christmas ever or what?”

“Excuse me?” says Sam. If there are plans to finish off the festivities with a family zombie hunt, he is going to be pissed.

“I just mean, for a bunch of corpses, we throw a damn good party.” Dean’s grinning as the trunk clicks shut.

“Oh,” says Sam. He hadn’t thought about it that way. It’s true, though: most of his favorite people number among the undead. Himself, too, actually. And Dean. Even Cas.

“That’s kind of messed up.”

“Nah,” says Dean, leaning back against his baby. Sam walks over and joins him. “We’re lucky,” Dean says. “We’re really, really lucky.”

“I know.” And Sam does know. He’s even starting to feel it, more and more: he’s truly blessed. And, you know: you’d think meeting God would have been kind of a clue, but Sam can be slow like that sometimes.

“I can’t believe that this is our life,” Sam says. “I mean, a year ago—”

But Dean shakes his head. He’s right—why even go there, that dark bad place: Ellen and Jo newly fallen; Lucifer breathing down the back of his neck; everyone he loved, it seemed, dead or dying. And all of it his fault.

Now they’re all alive, and safe, and (relatively) happy, and though it’s real, and Sam knows it, half the time he still expects that bastard Gabriel to pop up from somewhere and say, “Haha, gotcha!”

But Gabriel’s back in Heaven with all the other angels. Well, all the other angels, save one.

“So,” Sam says. Is he really going to talk about this? Apparently. “Cas came back.”

Dean’s face breaks out into an expression of pure, naked joy. It says a lot that Dean doesn’t even bother to hide it, though after a few seconds he does tone it down a bit.

“Yeah. He did.” Dean pats his car absently. “I knew I’d talked him around to our way of thinking.”

“Our way?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, you know. Humanity. Cas is way too cool to be happy up there with all those stodgy old angels.”

Of course, of course Dean thinks Cas only returned to Earth because he thought he was too cool for Heavenly school. Sam shakes his head. “Well, I’m glad he’s back,” he says. “For your sake.”

Dean glances at him; he can clearly tell Sam’s driving at something, even though he’s not sure what. “Well, yeah,” he says, and with only some minor hesitance, “Cas is my friend.”

Sam can’t help it: he barks out a laugh. “Dean!”

“What?” His brother’s annoyed now. Sam doesn’t want to kill the camaraderie of the moment, but with certain things, he knows, Dean will never take a step forward unless he’s given a strong, hard push.

“Dean,” he says slowly, carefully. “Victor is your friend. Ash and Ellen and Jo and Bobby and Pamela are your friends. Cas is not your friend.”

Dean’s easy posture has vanished; his shoulders are stiff, angry. “What the hell, Sam?”

“No, Dean, really.” He holds up two placating palms. “I’m not saying anything bad about you or him. But think about it, okay? Just think about it.”

And Sam decides to leave it at that, because if he has to spell it out for Dean, he thinks he may die. Again.

Merry Zombie Christmas.

“I’m going inside now,” Sam says.

Dean nods. He’s turned around, his hands flat on the Impala’s trunk. Sam’s not sure if he’s mad anymore, or if so, who at.

He’s almost at the front door when Dean calls out. “Sam,” he says, voice rough. “Send Cas out, will you?”

And Sam knew, but it still rocks him somewhat, roots him to the ground in front of his grandparents’ house when he sees the sort of peaceful longing in his brother’s eyes.

“Thanks, Sammy.”

Sam whispers, “You bet.”

Cas is standing with Jessica in front of the fire. “Hey,” Sam says, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. He gestures back toward the front door. “Dean wants you.”

His choice of words subsequently makes Sam blush. But Cas’ eyes light up at the mere mention of Dean’s name. This is, Sam realizes, possibly the most redundant case of romantic meddling ever. But what the hell. Call it a bonus Christmas gift.

Jess watches Cas leave, then turns to him with a sly smile. “You might want to save some of this yenta-ing for the Hanukkah party.”

Sam sticks his hands in his pockets and shrugs his shoulders. “I just want Dean to be happy,” he says.

Then he starts, the memory opening in his mind like a flower. God, standing before them in his somewhat inescapably anticlimactic glory. Granting them each a gift. And Dean, pushing forward and making his outrageous demands while Sam stood back and simply thought: I want my brother to be happy.

Cut to seven months later and the rather less-than-prompt angel delivery.

“Oh my—” Sam bites back on the blasphemy at the last second. He puts his hand to his mouth, as if he can somehow keep this tumble of confused emotion inside.

“What is it?” Jess asks.

“Nothing.” Sam shakes his head. A laugh slips out, easy and light. He drops his hand, twines his fingers with Jessica’s. “Just realizing that I am an idiot.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Jess says, squeezing his hand. “We all already knew that.”

The front door bangs open like it’s been swept in by a gale. Actually it’s just Dean. Cas is at his heels as Dean ducks into the living room; they both seem out of breath, cheeks flushed possibly from the cold, their lips swollen and tender.

“Okay, sorry to break up the party, but Cas and I gotta go,” Dean announces. “Thank you so much, it was great, let’s see each other soon!” He’s striding backward toward the front door as he talks, a slightly manic look in his eyes—one Sam is the only one who’s spent enough time around Dean to recognize.

Deanna stands up. “Is everything all right?”

“Yup, everything’s fine, everything’s good, just gotta...something came up.” Dean is nodding way too much.

“Anything we can help with?” Samuel asks.

“No,” says Dean, emphatically. “Okay, thanks again, Merry Christmas, bye!”

“It was nice meeting you, Cas,” Mom calls to Castiel, who’s floating somewhat dizzily in Dean’s wake. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“I hope so, Mary. And thank you, Deanna, for your wonderful cooking and your hospi—” Dean grabs his sleeve and jerks him bodily out the door. “Happy Christmas!” he calls instead, stumbling down the steps, bumping into Dean, laughing and holding each other up as they sprint toward the car and everything that’s waiting for them.

Into the quiet that follows their departure, Deanna tisks. “That wasn’t even subtle.”

Mary laughs. “Mom, were you about to say, ‘Kids these days’?”

“No!” says Deanna, mock-offended. “I was going to let Samuel say it.”

“I’m under strict instructions not to say anything,” Samuel grouses, but without any real heat. He tops up his glass, then pours Dad another drink. They toast...something or other. Their manly, but not terribly begrudging, dignity in the face of such enthusiastically blossoming gayness, maybe. Sam rolls his eyes.

Jessica steps between them and pours herself her own glass of whiskey, neat. “I don’t want to be presumptuous,” she says. “I’m so thankful that you’ve included me.”

“Of course,” whispers Deanna, but Jessica’s not done yet.

“I just wanted to say, I hope we can make this a tradition,” she says, raising a glass. After a moment, Dad and Samuel mimic her, silently. Mom says, “Hear, hear.”

Jess turns and glances up at him. There’s a look on her face, that familiar smile. But it’s not apprehensive at all, Sam realizes. It’s hopeful.

Arm around her back, he takes the glass from her hand and raises it to his own lips. He thinks about doing this next year—this crazy awkward family pageant: Deanna with her knives, Samuel and Dad with their rivalry, Dean and Cas probably graduating to making out inappropriately in public before too long. Doing it next year, and the year after that. And all the rest of the years hereafter.

If Sam’s crying a little, it’s only because Dean’s not here to. Someone’s got to pick up the slack.

He hugs Jess tight and looks around at the faces of his family.

“God bless us,” Sam says, “every one.”