: HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE : Supernatural : Gen
Have Yourself a Merry Little.
:: Gen, Supernatural, G. (Future!Dean tries to create the perfect Christmas for his family prompt for spn_christmas.)
Summary:: Years after the hunt is over, Dean's trying to give his family the things that he never had.
12.16.2006 Have Yourself a Merry Little.
The house is an eyesore.
Dean loves it more than he can put into words.
He's proud that people from the neighborhood wait every year for him to put up the lights; icicles on the eaves of the small two-story and reindeer on the roof. There's one of those huge blow-up Santas in the front yard, rocking gently back and forth with the wind. Each window is lined and even the chimney is wrapped with lights. It's tacky as hell, the whole thing, and it makes Dean smile every time he flips the switch in the garage.
When he parks the SUV in the drive next to the Impala covered in blue tarp and snow, he's grinning even though he's pulled up to the house a million times since putting the lights up the day after Thanksgiving. Covered in grease and smelling like the shop, Dean takes a minute to just stand in the bitter December evening and look at the place.
The sound of the front door opening - the light from inside spilling out is lost in the ambient glow of the house - turns Dean's head and now he's smiling for a different reason. His daughters tumble out onto the porch and down the steps, yelling. They're dressed in long underwear and boots, jackets half-zipped in rush and mittens left in Beka's hands where she stands in the doorway laughing. Dean grins at his wife and she gives a shrug. "Tag," she calls out.
Eloise - named for Beka's grandmother - smashes against his hip and wraps her arms around his thigh. Her younger sister mirrors the action on his other leg and turns her face up to him. Rosalie's missing one front tooth and Dean sometimes wonders if she gets her blonde curls from his side of the family. She certainly looks a little like his mom, and a lot like Sam if he's honest with himself. When she was born Beka asked if Dean wanted to name her Mary, but he hadn't. He'd chased his mother's ghost for long enough.
Now Dean leans down and grabs her around the waist with a grin to sling her over his shoulder and it's amazing how the two girls can shriek in unison even though Eloise is still on the ground, her seven-year-old cheeks red with cold and laughter. He tweaks her nose and she runs toward the house. Rosalie struggles valiantly on his shoulder. "Settle down, twerp," he says with a chuckle and she twists to see him, curls in her eyes.
"Snot-head."
"Ouch," Dean says, kissing her on the cheek. "Make that one up yourself, Nash?" He starts toward the house, snow crunching under his boots where a new light fall has already covered the shoveled walk.
"Why do I always have to be Nash? I want to be Crosby," she grumps.
Dean laughs. "Because you're the ugly one."
Her small face scrunches up and he's forcibly reminded of the stubborn looks that Sam used to get when he was smaller and setting to fight with Dad. His momentum pauses; looking at her he sees a long-lost version of his brother.
Then Rosalie's fingers are in the corners of his mouth, stretching out his lips. Dean breaks into laughter and pulls her hands gently away. "Hey, what was that for?"
His daughter crinkles her nose. "You were wake-walkin."
"Sleep-walking," he corrects, "and I wasn't sleeping. Because if I was sleeping..." Dean teeters toward the high bank of snow in the front yard edging the walk. Rosalie shrieks and wraps her arms around his head as he dips towards the snow, pulls back, dips again.
"Wake up!" she laughs. "Daddy, wake-up! You're gonna crash us!" Which he does, tumbling into the snow drift on his back, Rosalie clutched against his chest and head. A moment later Eloise is jumping into the powder next to them with a laugh and starting an angel, her legs and arms flapping back and forth.
When Rosalie moves enough for Dean to breathe, and see, Beka's standing above them with an impressive frown on her lips that looks in serious danger of cracking. "Guess what?" she says, hands on narrow hips. Her breath is misting in the cold, the blue sweater hugging her mommy-curves probably not warm enough. "You've got bath duty for this."
Eloise gives a "yesss," under her breath and Dean drops a handful of snow down onto her face. As she sputters he reaches up a hand for Beka but she only steps back with a laugh and a shake of her head. "No way. Nice try, Mr Winchester, but your wife isn't as big of an idiot as you seem to think."
Dean grins. "Come on, now. You know I didn't marry you for your brains -" there might have been more after that but Eloise shoves a bunch of snow down the back of his shirt and Dean yelps as Beka laughs and his daughters scatter into the snow, trying to find a safe spot against retaliation.
Fifteen minutes later Dean's got a wet spot on his back but his girls are soaked to the bone, teeth chattering and mother displeased. "Dad aims too good," Eloise complains as Beka marches them all into the house.
"You'll get better. Now go up upstairs and start the water," Dean says, peeling her jacket off as Beka tugs Rosalie's boots free of little feet and sets them near the front closet to dry. Even as Eloise heads for the stairs, her hay colored hair wet and sticking around her head like a crazy burnished halo, Rosalie's getting a look that Dean knows all too well. "You're taking a bath," he tells her as she starts to meander slyly away down the hall toward the kitchen after her mother. She turns and pins him with her hazel eyes.
Rosalie hates baths, but he knows how to bribe her. Dean smiles and beckons her closer with a crooked finger. After a moment of consideration she steps in and Dean whispers, "if you go now, I'll let you get into the tub with your clothes on." They're soaked anyway, he can't see the harm.
Rosalie's eyebrows perk up before her eyes narrow. Then she sticks out her hand, a little five-year-old girl with the locked arm and waiting shake of a solemn fifty-year-old man. Dean shakes her hand, makes the deal, and she runs with a grin up the stairs.
He sees the patterns now, things he lived when he was younger but couldn't quite understand. The first-born who's the first to try everything and given the least slack. It must be a universal parental code.
When Eloise was born Dean could hardly bring himself to let her out of his sight; he must have checked under her bed and in her closet every night before she went to sleep until she was four - amazing that he didn't give her a complex. And on the first day of kindergarten he stood outside with Beka holding the squirming Rosalie until his oldest disappeared into the building, her pink backpack bouncing, and wondered if any of the teachers liked to steal the souls of children. The school did not look very safe.
And then, Rosalie. Dean has learned to relax and she has learned to get away with anything she wants. Maybe, he thinks, Sam and Dad didn't do so well because Sam knew how to work Dad but Dad was too much of a stubborn bastard to let it slide.
Hanging up his own damp leather jacket, Dean heads into the kitchen. "Need any help?" Beka looks up from the stove and gives him a face that makes him want to kiss her, a mix of exasperation and patience that he's come to see as her personal version of love. "I'll take that as a no."
"Remember last year?" she asks, sliding the cookie sheet onto the stove top to cool. "You're better at starting fires than cooking, Dean." He snorts and comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle and pressing his face into her neck. Her brown hair is soft and smells like apples.
"Come on," he says, kissing her neck. Instinctively Beka's head and shoulder creep together, trying to force him out of the spot with a laugh. "I haven't salted and burned anything in a long time."
"Except the turkey you tried to make two weeks ago." Beka laughs and turns in his hold. "And that wasn't the remains of anything except a poor bird who died to feed us."
Dean told Beka early on. Once the demon was dead... well, after that the hunting lost its edge. Dean had been so afraid that Sam was going to drift away after they'd finished the son of a bitch off, but he'd never counted on drifting away himself. He hadn't realized that all the hunting he had done over his lifetime, all the training and killing - every bit of it had been to avenge something that he'd been too young to properly remember happening. It had been for Dad and, later, for Sam. After that bastard had died though, well... Dean had relaxed a bit. Breathed and looked around, and had seen Beka.
She was a beautiful girl in a classic way and had a vocabulary on her that could peel paint. Her dad had been a Seal and she was a military brat who'd lived all over the world and knew how to dismantle a .45 in thirty seconds. It took Dean a year of cock-teases and blue-balls from her while passing back and forth through Tennessee before he gave up other girls completely.
At that point he could tell that Sam was itching for something other than motels and cardboard burgers, and slowly Dean realized that he was only seeing it in his brother because he was feeling the same way.
The next time Dean and Sam had driven through Tennessee, Dean had felt sick the whole way across the state and blamed it on fast food. When they reached Memphis, Sam made himself scarce and Dean sat Beka down on the couch in her studio apartment. He remembered it smelling like her even then, like apples and good, green things, and god had he been scared that he'd never smell it again. Scared in a way that none of the things that Went Bump In the Night had ever made him scared.
He told her everything with a straight face and a knot in his stomach. He told her about his mom and the things he'd killed before he was old enough to drive.
Dean told her about the demon.
About his Dad.
Beka sat quietly through the entire story, her face unreadable, her hands folded in her lap. "I'm sorry about your father," she said finally, and Dean flinched. Then, "I believe you," and those words unlocked something in his chest that had been so tightly wound for so long that Dean had learned to ignore the pain of it. They made love on that blue couch right then, slow and gentle, and Beka had gasped his name against his shoulder and stolen every piece of his heart that didn't belong to Sam.
The girls are laughing upstairs, loud enough to be heard through the ceiling, and Dean looks up like he can see what mischief they're getting up to. "I wanted boys," he tells Beka with a lopsided smile. Her eyes are thoughtful when he meets her gaze and she kisses him, slow and lingering. Dean can feel the matching smile come to her lips as they're pressing to his.
"You're doing a good job of raising hooligans, one way or another," she says with a wink. "Now go corral your kids and get out of my kitchen. I don't need anything burning on Christmas Eve, except maybe in the fireplace."
Over the past month, Christmas had slowly exploded inside of their home. Dean feels like he's trying to make up for the things that he never got as a kid - the tree, the Christmas carols, stringing cranberries and advent calendars. That's why each year his light display gets a little bigger until it's swallowed both front yard and back.
These days the rooms are constantly filled with the smell of cookies - although that's Beka's doing - and Rosalie's been on a sugar-high since Thanksgiving. There is a construction paper Santa on the fridge and mistletoe in the doorway between the kitchen and dinning room. Eloise is responsible for the army of popsicle stick reindeer that are everywhere. She re-hides the single one with the red nose and somehow Dean gets roped into Rudolph scavenger hunts every other day. He does it with a smile. Around Christmas, he does everything with a smile.
The shrieks and laugher from the hall bathroom upstairs silence instantly when Dean's first foot hits the landing. He can still hear Rosalie giggling, but it's muffled. A smile nudges onto his face - Eloise has got that instinct that makes him proud and a little sad. She learns fast and listens to the little things that he says when he doesn’t even realize that she's paying attention. "Quiet up here," he muses to the empty hall. Rosalie snorts in the bathroom. "Guess the girls are taking their bath and being perfect little angels."
Dean knows what he's going to find when he opens the door. The yellow tile floor is wet and his daughters are sitting in the bathtub in the long underwear they'd worn outside. Shampoo sticks Rosalie's hair up in a spike and she's squinting over the hand Eloise has across her mouth. "Clothes off," he says. "And wash your sister's head."
"I got cool hair, Daddy!" Rosalie says as she shoves Eloise's hand away.
Dean smiles and steps all the way into the humid bathroom, grabbing the little pitcher sitting on the side of the tub himself. He dunks it into the sudsy bathwater. "Not anymore," he says. "Close your eyes." Eloise starts struggling out of her wet clothes as Dean dumps the water over Rosalie's head.
It amazes Dean constantly how much having children makes him think of his own childhood, considering how different the two experiences are. At least once a day Rosalie says something that reminds Dean of Sam, or he finds himself helping his oldest daughter do a simple thing like wiggling free a loose tooth that he had to manage on his own when he was her age. Loose teeth did not compare to vengeful spirits when he was growing up.
When Sam went back to law school, Dean and Beka got a house in the town around the college. The brothers took weekend hunting trips that Beka packed sandwiches and salt-rounds for, standing in the doorway to watch the Impala until it was out of sight. Every time they went it was a little harder seeing her fade out of the rearview mirror and when Eloise was born, all small and pink and defenseless, the trips stopped altogether.
That was just about when Sam got the job offer that took him two thousand miles away. Dean had his new family to cover up the hurt of Sam saying his goodbyes the second time around.
Wet fingers poke up his nose and Dean grimaces and playfully snaps at Rosalie's hand. "Dream-walkin," she says.
"Sleep-walking," Eloise corrects.
Rosalie sticks out her tongue. "Booger-face."
"Snot-head."
Dean dumps water over Eloise's head and she sputters. "Now I know where she got it from," he says with a shake of his head. "And what's up with all the mucus anyway?" Rosalie is stripped down; all the wet laundry tossed into the corner. Bad habits die hard.
"I read this book -"
"Mom's letting you read again? Gonna have to talk to her about that."
"- and there's this elephant who's going on a vacation, but he's got a cold -"
"Sounds very educational."
"- and guess how big his boogers are!"
Dean looks at Eloise and folds his arms on the edge of the tub, his sleeves pushed up over his elbows. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
His oldest daughter spreads her arms as wide as she can and Rosalie screams, "big enough to fill his trunk!" Eloise grunts at her little sister - who's now laughing hysterically in the way only little kids can get away with - for stealing her thunder.
"Sounds like lots of washing getting done up there," calls Beka's voice from downstairs. Dean frowns dramatically and brushes a finger down over Eloise's nose.
"You heard the Lady of the House," he says. "Help your sister and don't forget to let the water out of the tub this time." Dean unfolds from his spot and heads to the door, pausing in the frame and turning back to look at his daughter, who's grabbing the soap. "Hey, Leeze, I don't remember that book."
She raises her eyes and gives him a look that is all Beka. "Dad, Uncle Sammy sent it for my birthday." Duh.
There's a heartbeat and then Dean finds a smile. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Uncle Sammy always did think he was a real riot." Excluding the time he spent taking himself too seriously, of course.
The door is closed behind him and Dean moves to his bedroom. It's quaint and lived in, with dark wood floors and handmade rugs found at flea markets. There's a quilt on the bed that Beka's mom made them as a wedding present and a rocking chair in the corner that they'd bought when Eloise was born. Sometimes Dean can't believe it's his, this room, that he helped make it what it is. After how he'd lived, what did he know about normal?
Apparently, stuff like that works itself out. Dean can't help but think that Sam didn't have it so wrong after all, which is an irony that makes his chest ache just a little.
The room is so familiar to him that Dean doesn't need to turn on the light in order to change out of his shop clothes. The shirt with the grease stains and the logo reading 'Winchester Auto Body' gets thrown in the hamper, Dean's pendant hanging cool on his skin for a moment before he tugs on a worn out long-sleeve shirt and pushes up the sleeves. Navy pants are traded for jeans and Dean sits on the edge of the bed, hurriedly made and lumpy.
Listening to the low murmur of his daughter's voices from the bathroom, he puts a hand to his chest, high, on the left side. He knows the scars there so well, has traced them so many times, that Dean can feel them perfectly through his shirt.
What Dad did... he thinks maybe he understands it a little more everyday. Because he's been married for eight years now but every time he sees Beka he finds something new to love about her. How she hums bad country songs when she thinks no one is listening, or the way she braids Eloise's hair. Little things. Things that Dad must have found in mom, too.
If he ever lost Beka the way Dad lost mom - Dean isn't sure he wouldn't do the same thing that his father had done.
"You're thinking loudly today."
Dean starts at her soft voice but relaxes as Beka steps up and pushes to stand between his legs, wrapping his head and shoulders gently in her arms. He presses his face against her breasts and lets his hands rest on her hips for a moment before pulling her closer, tighter. Beka strokes her fingers through his hair as he breathes her in. When he sits up she traces the side of his face and gives a quiet smile that he knows means only if you want to talk about it. Dean's still not great with sharing his feelings, probably never will be. But the patience that Beka gives him in the matter is something that Sam never did. And without someone to fight against him, Dean finds himself folding faster, easier.
"I hope those cookies burnt out of spite."
She smiles, a look he finds himself unable to contemplate living without. "It was sheet-wide mutiny."
There's a chuckle. "Nash will eat them anyway."
"Dean?"
He looks at her face, the left side highlighted by the glow of the Christmas lights out the bedroom window. Her high cheekbones and soft eyes and the lips he's gladly lost himself in more times than he can remember. "The lights are too much this year, aren't they?"
The insecurity is rare for him and hard to admit and makes her smile - a reaction that tightens his own features into the mask he's never forgotten how to slip on. "Stop it," Beka says, grabbing his chin as he starts to look away. "I love the lights," she admits quietly. Something hot and grateful uncurls in Dean's stomach. "Eloise told me today that she wants you to do lights for Valentine's Day too. Pink lights."
Dean laughs and twists his head to kiss her fingers. "I have to draw the line somewhere."
"Oh, yes. You're very good at drawing lines with the girls." Beka laughs and taps his nose, stepping away from his hold. Noise in the hallway turns her head and she reaches up, pointing a finger out the door. "Rosalie Lynn, don't you dare go downstairs naked." And then she's moving out of the room, hips swaying a commanding beat.
Dean watches the shadows in the hall from the bathroom light until all the women in his life are in the girls' bedroom and there's just muffled noises left to keep his attention. He looks out the window. The lights are good. The tree is up, presents sent from Beka's family already underneath it. There's a Christmas movie for later and cookies for Santa for even later than that.
There's irony in the fact that Dean lets his children believe in Santa Claus but doesn't let them know of the real things that wait in the shadows, the Boogey Men and the werewolves that are far more real than a jolly fat man in red sweats.
Lesser of two evils, maybe. After all, Santa's content with eating the cookies.
So. Lights, check. Tree, check. Cheer, check. Then why does Dean feel like there's something that he's missing? There's nothing more he can decorate, nothing else that Beka can cook. He's unsure what he's still trying to fill. The girls aren't wanting for anything; tomorrow they'll have too many presents anyway.
Dean's fingers ghost against the upper left side of his shirt again. He's staring out the window when the sound of his family heading downstairs reaches into the room and interrupts his thoughts. Dean smiles as he hears Rosalie ask why they can't have chicken nuggets on Christmas Eve and his hand drops into his lap. Beka sticks her head into the room. "Dinner," she says with a quiet smile before disappearing. Her footsteps down the stairs are as soft as the expression was.
In the kitchen, Beka already has the table set and Eloise and Rosalie in their chairs when Dean joins them. He puts his hands out automatically, palms up, and both girls do the same, showing him how clean they are. "Pruney," he says with a smile. Eloise giggles and Rosalie frowns, examining her fingers.
Dean never imagined how important dinners around a table would become to him. They are something that he never insists on, but Beka knows and quietly makes sure that the family is settled and eating together every night.
Beka cuts Rosalie's food and Dean steals a bite of macaroni with a grin. When Eloise steals a bit too, her sister starts to yell and then the law comes to town, mom taking food from both their plates and putting it back on Rosalie's to quiet her.
"She's such a baby," Eloise says, looking upset.
Beka cuts a glance in Dean's direction. "Your father's not much better. Don’t forget to eat your green beans too, Leeze." The long face doesn't go away, but their oldest daughter eats every single one of the beans on her plate before dinner is over. Rosalie leaves a full half of her pile, which Dean finishes after she's been excused.
Finishing the last of his beer, Dean rises to help clean the table and he reaches in front of Eloise to take her empty plate. She's still grumping over what happened even though her sister's mood has passed and Rosalie is currently running through the kitchen and living room in her red and green pajamas singing, "Jingle bells! Batman smells, jingle all the way! Jokermobile lost a wheel when he went away!" Dean bends to kiss the top of Eloise's head. He understands exactly how she feels about her sister right now.
"Dad," she says in a grumble, "she's not even singing the right words."
"Your sister makes up her own words to 'Happy Birthday," Dean replies with a shrug.
He remembers Jingle Bells the way he and Sam used to sing it, full of 'shotgun shells' and 'Dad sure smells,' and 'nothing gets away.' The thought makes him smile with one side of his mouth as he puts the plates in the sink.
Fingers scratch through the hair at the nape of his neck and over his shoulder Beka says, "I see the smoke coming out your ears," as she passes him. His wife makes it look easy, grabbing the running Rosalie in the living room in one deft move and dumping her onto the couch. From the sound of it, tickling follows. Dean sees Eloise perk up a little, pretending not to notice the laughter, but it's already a lost battle. Soon enough there's a tangle of girly limbs taking up the couch.
So it is that Dean's the only one who hears the bell over the shrieking and laughter and even though he's got his hands full of their soapy reindeer-themed plates, he's the one who goes to answer the door, dishtowel in hand.
Dean expects a neighbor with a pie or presents for the girls, maybe. He expects Beka's older brother because the man doesn't live far enough and he can't cook in the same way Dean can't cook. A small, tiny bit of him even still expects something with yellow eyes.
What he doesn't expect is Sam.
Dean stands there, staring at his brother as the girls laugh and yell in the background. He hasn't seen Sam in seven months, only gets a call every now and then when their schedules intersect. The kid looks good - better than Dean ever wants to admit that Sam can look without his big brother's constant supervision. He's in slacks and dress shoes, and his long black professional jacket has its collar up to block the wind. Sam's hair is still too long - even now that he's a big-shot lawyer - but some things never change.
There's a bag over his shoulder.
"Beka called," Sam says, his words muffled by the black collar. White breath puffs up and crosses his face. "She said you had a sofa bed with a spring that'll dig right into my spine. Better than a chiropractor."
That same hot, grateful feeling from earlier blossoms outward from his stomach. Dean's face breaks into a smile and he steps aside to clear the door. "You might not be able to handle it, wuss."
"Jerk."
Dean is grinning like an idiot. Feeling a bit like one, too. He'd been working so hard to give his kids all the things he didn't have during Christmas, but he'd forgotten the most important, the one thing that made all the difference.
Behind his brother, another figure steps to the door and Sarah pokes her head around Sam's arm with a smile. "Merry Christmas! And really, the brother thing is touching, but I'm freezing."
By then getting inside is a wasted effort, however, because the girls have spotted the guests and the noise increases by decibels as Eloise tries to climb into Sam's arms and Rosalie latches onto Sarah. Beka makes it look easy, working around the kids to kiss them both on the cheek as Dean tries to move bodies in order to close the door. He catches Beka's eye and she just smiles because she's known all along and kept it a secret.
It's three hours later when the girls are finally asleep and Sarah's helping Beka wrap presents that Dean and Sam are standing out on the back porch together. Dean's holding a cup of coffee, the steam twisting up away into the night. Sam's mug is on the railing, his hands shoved into his pockets.
"These lights are god-awful," he says, twisting awkwardly to try and look at the house without letting the cold air into his coat.
Dean looks himself, even though he's seen them before. "Yeah," he says with a smile.
"Hey." Sam turns his attention to Dean for a moment and then looks out into the backyard. "I wanted to tell you something."
There's that tone to Sam's voice that Dean knows, even though his brother's hardly said anything. "You're gonna get chicky on me, aren't you?"
"No, Dean, don't -"
"Want some tissues? A pink shirt? Midol?"
Sam looks at Dean, the patience of a younger sibling at work in the clenching of his jaw. "Dude," he says, which is - as far as Dean is concerned, anyway - not lawyer-speak, but it's so easy to fall back into the banter of a lifetime, "you've got Rainbow Bright riding a reindeer in your living room."
There's a beat missed and Dean looks at Sam, purses his lips. Finally, "touché." A comfortable silence stretches between them then, thick and sated. It's a winter silence, with snow settling and frozen things cracking. Dean takes a sip of his coffee and his eyes slide over the rim of his mug. "So?" he asks after he swallows.
Sam snorts white and looks away. He takes another moment of that winter hush with his hands pushed deep into his pockets before he says, "I'm going to propose to Sarah. I thought that I could, you know, do it here. Maybe tomorrow."
Dean looks over at his brother. "Do you have the ring?" Sam nods and stays quiet, pulling a hand free to slip inside his coat and take out a small, black velvet box. The ring is gorgeous; Dean puts his coffee down to turn it under the glow of the Christmas lights.
"You know," he says. "She'll love it. Girl's always been a fool for you. Even that first time, when you almost wussed out on her." He snaps the box closed and hands it back.
"Shut up," Sam says petulantly, but Dean knows the flush in his brother's cheeks isn't all from the cold. The ring is shoved away to safety.
Dean picks up his coffee and cradles it, leaning his forearms on the railing. In the backyard, the swing set is just a phantom shape underneath the snow. The few trees back here have Christmas lights wrapped around them and the fence actually has 'Happy Holidays' spelled out on it, facing the side street. "It'll be all you need," Dean says quietly. "Her. Kids. It's a good life." He looks down at his coffee, the steam just wisps now. "I'm glad... you know. That you're here."
There's a shuffle of large feet. "Yeah," Sam says. And that's all. But it's enough.
From inside, Rosemary Clooney starts to sing. Dean tilts his head down and over and looks at Sam, back-lit by the house and grinning like a kid. Here was the most important thing, the one thing that made all the difference.
Through the years we all will be together,
If the Fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now.
:: Gen, Supernatural, G. (Future!Dean tries to create the perfect Christmas for his family prompt for spn_christmas.)
Summary:: Years after the hunt is over, Dean's trying to give his family the things that he never had.
12.16.2006 Have Yourself a Merry Little.
The house is an eyesore.
Dean loves it more than he can put into words.
He's proud that people from the neighborhood wait every year for him to put up the lights; icicles on the eaves of the small two-story and reindeer on the roof. There's one of those huge blow-up Santas in the front yard, rocking gently back and forth with the wind. Each window is lined and even the chimney is wrapped with lights. It's tacky as hell, the whole thing, and it makes Dean smile every time he flips the switch in the garage.
When he parks the SUV in the drive next to the Impala covered in blue tarp and snow, he's grinning even though he's pulled up to the house a million times since putting the lights up the day after Thanksgiving. Covered in grease and smelling like the shop, Dean takes a minute to just stand in the bitter December evening and look at the place.
The sound of the front door opening - the light from inside spilling out is lost in the ambient glow of the house - turns Dean's head and now he's smiling for a different reason. His daughters tumble out onto the porch and down the steps, yelling. They're dressed in long underwear and boots, jackets half-zipped in rush and mittens left in Beka's hands where she stands in the doorway laughing. Dean grins at his wife and she gives a shrug. "Tag," she calls out.
Eloise - named for Beka's grandmother - smashes against his hip and wraps her arms around his thigh. Her younger sister mirrors the action on his other leg and turns her face up to him. Rosalie's missing one front tooth and Dean sometimes wonders if she gets her blonde curls from his side of the family. She certainly looks a little like his mom, and a lot like Sam if he's honest with himself. When she was born Beka asked if Dean wanted to name her Mary, but he hadn't. He'd chased his mother's ghost for long enough.
Now Dean leans down and grabs her around the waist with a grin to sling her over his shoulder and it's amazing how the two girls can shriek in unison even though Eloise is still on the ground, her seven-year-old cheeks red with cold and laughter. He tweaks her nose and she runs toward the house. Rosalie struggles valiantly on his shoulder. "Settle down, twerp," he says with a chuckle and she twists to see him, curls in her eyes.
"Snot-head."
"Ouch," Dean says, kissing her on the cheek. "Make that one up yourself, Nash?" He starts toward the house, snow crunching under his boots where a new light fall has already covered the shoveled walk.
"Why do I always have to be Nash? I want to be Crosby," she grumps.
Dean laughs. "Because you're the ugly one."
Her small face scrunches up and he's forcibly reminded of the stubborn looks that Sam used to get when he was smaller and setting to fight with Dad. His momentum pauses; looking at her he sees a long-lost version of his brother.
Then Rosalie's fingers are in the corners of his mouth, stretching out his lips. Dean breaks into laughter and pulls her hands gently away. "Hey, what was that for?"
His daughter crinkles her nose. "You were wake-walkin."
"Sleep-walking," he corrects, "and I wasn't sleeping. Because if I was sleeping..." Dean teeters toward the high bank of snow in the front yard edging the walk. Rosalie shrieks and wraps her arms around his head as he dips towards the snow, pulls back, dips again.
"Wake up!" she laughs. "Daddy, wake-up! You're gonna crash us!" Which he does, tumbling into the snow drift on his back, Rosalie clutched against his chest and head. A moment later Eloise is jumping into the powder next to them with a laugh and starting an angel, her legs and arms flapping back and forth.
When Rosalie moves enough for Dean to breathe, and see, Beka's standing above them with an impressive frown on her lips that looks in serious danger of cracking. "Guess what?" she says, hands on narrow hips. Her breath is misting in the cold, the blue sweater hugging her mommy-curves probably not warm enough. "You've got bath duty for this."
Eloise gives a "yesss," under her breath and Dean drops a handful of snow down onto her face. As she sputters he reaches up a hand for Beka but she only steps back with a laugh and a shake of her head. "No way. Nice try, Mr Winchester, but your wife isn't as big of an idiot as you seem to think."
Dean grins. "Come on, now. You know I didn't marry you for your brains -" there might have been more after that but Eloise shoves a bunch of snow down the back of his shirt and Dean yelps as Beka laughs and his daughters scatter into the snow, trying to find a safe spot against retaliation.
Fifteen minutes later Dean's got a wet spot on his back but his girls are soaked to the bone, teeth chattering and mother displeased. "Dad aims too good," Eloise complains as Beka marches them all into the house.
"You'll get better. Now go up upstairs and start the water," Dean says, peeling her jacket off as Beka tugs Rosalie's boots free of little feet and sets them near the front closet to dry. Even as Eloise heads for the stairs, her hay colored hair wet and sticking around her head like a crazy burnished halo, Rosalie's getting a look that Dean knows all too well. "You're taking a bath," he tells her as she starts to meander slyly away down the hall toward the kitchen after her mother. She turns and pins him with her hazel eyes.
Rosalie hates baths, but he knows how to bribe her. Dean smiles and beckons her closer with a crooked finger. After a moment of consideration she steps in and Dean whispers, "if you go now, I'll let you get into the tub with your clothes on." They're soaked anyway, he can't see the harm.
Rosalie's eyebrows perk up before her eyes narrow. Then she sticks out her hand, a little five-year-old girl with the locked arm and waiting shake of a solemn fifty-year-old man. Dean shakes her hand, makes the deal, and she runs with a grin up the stairs.
He sees the patterns now, things he lived when he was younger but couldn't quite understand. The first-born who's the first to try everything and given the least slack. It must be a universal parental code.
When Eloise was born Dean could hardly bring himself to let her out of his sight; he must have checked under her bed and in her closet every night before she went to sleep until she was four - amazing that he didn't give her a complex. And on the first day of kindergarten he stood outside with Beka holding the squirming Rosalie until his oldest disappeared into the building, her pink backpack bouncing, and wondered if any of the teachers liked to steal the souls of children. The school did not look very safe.
And then, Rosalie. Dean has learned to relax and she has learned to get away with anything she wants. Maybe, he thinks, Sam and Dad didn't do so well because Sam knew how to work Dad but Dad was too much of a stubborn bastard to let it slide.
Hanging up his own damp leather jacket, Dean heads into the kitchen. "Need any help?" Beka looks up from the stove and gives him a face that makes him want to kiss her, a mix of exasperation and patience that he's come to see as her personal version of love. "I'll take that as a no."
"Remember last year?" she asks, sliding the cookie sheet onto the stove top to cool. "You're better at starting fires than cooking, Dean." He snorts and comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle and pressing his face into her neck. Her brown hair is soft and smells like apples.
"Come on," he says, kissing her neck. Instinctively Beka's head and shoulder creep together, trying to force him out of the spot with a laugh. "I haven't salted and burned anything in a long time."
"Except the turkey you tried to make two weeks ago." Beka laughs and turns in his hold. "And that wasn't the remains of anything except a poor bird who died to feed us."
Dean told Beka early on. Once the demon was dead... well, after that the hunting lost its edge. Dean had been so afraid that Sam was going to drift away after they'd finished the son of a bitch off, but he'd never counted on drifting away himself. He hadn't realized that all the hunting he had done over his lifetime, all the training and killing - every bit of it had been to avenge something that he'd been too young to properly remember happening. It had been for Dad and, later, for Sam. After that bastard had died though, well... Dean had relaxed a bit. Breathed and looked around, and had seen Beka.
She was a beautiful girl in a classic way and had a vocabulary on her that could peel paint. Her dad had been a Seal and she was a military brat who'd lived all over the world and knew how to dismantle a .45 in thirty seconds. It took Dean a year of cock-teases and blue-balls from her while passing back and forth through Tennessee before he gave up other girls completely.
At that point he could tell that Sam was itching for something other than motels and cardboard burgers, and slowly Dean realized that he was only seeing it in his brother because he was feeling the same way.
The next time Dean and Sam had driven through Tennessee, Dean had felt sick the whole way across the state and blamed it on fast food. When they reached Memphis, Sam made himself scarce and Dean sat Beka down on the couch in her studio apartment. He remembered it smelling like her even then, like apples and good, green things, and god had he been scared that he'd never smell it again. Scared in a way that none of the things that Went Bump In the Night had ever made him scared.
He told her everything with a straight face and a knot in his stomach. He told her about his mom and the things he'd killed before he was old enough to drive.
Dean told her about the demon.
About his Dad.
Beka sat quietly through the entire story, her face unreadable, her hands folded in her lap. "I'm sorry about your father," she said finally, and Dean flinched. Then, "I believe you," and those words unlocked something in his chest that had been so tightly wound for so long that Dean had learned to ignore the pain of it. They made love on that blue couch right then, slow and gentle, and Beka had gasped his name against his shoulder and stolen every piece of his heart that didn't belong to Sam.
The girls are laughing upstairs, loud enough to be heard through the ceiling, and Dean looks up like he can see what mischief they're getting up to. "I wanted boys," he tells Beka with a lopsided smile. Her eyes are thoughtful when he meets her gaze and she kisses him, slow and lingering. Dean can feel the matching smile come to her lips as they're pressing to his.
"You're doing a good job of raising hooligans, one way or another," she says with a wink. "Now go corral your kids and get out of my kitchen. I don't need anything burning on Christmas Eve, except maybe in the fireplace."
Over the past month, Christmas had slowly exploded inside of their home. Dean feels like he's trying to make up for the things that he never got as a kid - the tree, the Christmas carols, stringing cranberries and advent calendars. That's why each year his light display gets a little bigger until it's swallowed both front yard and back.
These days the rooms are constantly filled with the smell of cookies - although that's Beka's doing - and Rosalie's been on a sugar-high since Thanksgiving. There is a construction paper Santa on the fridge and mistletoe in the doorway between the kitchen and dinning room. Eloise is responsible for the army of popsicle stick reindeer that are everywhere. She re-hides the single one with the red nose and somehow Dean gets roped into Rudolph scavenger hunts every other day. He does it with a smile. Around Christmas, he does everything with a smile.
The shrieks and laugher from the hall bathroom upstairs silence instantly when Dean's first foot hits the landing. He can still hear Rosalie giggling, but it's muffled. A smile nudges onto his face - Eloise has got that instinct that makes him proud and a little sad. She learns fast and listens to the little things that he says when he doesn’t even realize that she's paying attention. "Quiet up here," he muses to the empty hall. Rosalie snorts in the bathroom. "Guess the girls are taking their bath and being perfect little angels."
Dean knows what he's going to find when he opens the door. The yellow tile floor is wet and his daughters are sitting in the bathtub in the long underwear they'd worn outside. Shampoo sticks Rosalie's hair up in a spike and she's squinting over the hand Eloise has across her mouth. "Clothes off," he says. "And wash your sister's head."
"I got cool hair, Daddy!" Rosalie says as she shoves Eloise's hand away.
Dean smiles and steps all the way into the humid bathroom, grabbing the little pitcher sitting on the side of the tub himself. He dunks it into the sudsy bathwater. "Not anymore," he says. "Close your eyes." Eloise starts struggling out of her wet clothes as Dean dumps the water over Rosalie's head.
It amazes Dean constantly how much having children makes him think of his own childhood, considering how different the two experiences are. At least once a day Rosalie says something that reminds Dean of Sam, or he finds himself helping his oldest daughter do a simple thing like wiggling free a loose tooth that he had to manage on his own when he was her age. Loose teeth did not compare to vengeful spirits when he was growing up.
When Sam went back to law school, Dean and Beka got a house in the town around the college. The brothers took weekend hunting trips that Beka packed sandwiches and salt-rounds for, standing in the doorway to watch the Impala until it was out of sight. Every time they went it was a little harder seeing her fade out of the rearview mirror and when Eloise was born, all small and pink and defenseless, the trips stopped altogether.
That was just about when Sam got the job offer that took him two thousand miles away. Dean had his new family to cover up the hurt of Sam saying his goodbyes the second time around.
Wet fingers poke up his nose and Dean grimaces and playfully snaps at Rosalie's hand. "Dream-walkin," she says.
"Sleep-walking," Eloise corrects.
Rosalie sticks out her tongue. "Booger-face."
"Snot-head."
Dean dumps water over Eloise's head and she sputters. "Now I know where she got it from," he says with a shake of his head. "And what's up with all the mucus anyway?" Rosalie is stripped down; all the wet laundry tossed into the corner. Bad habits die hard.
"I read this book -"
"Mom's letting you read again? Gonna have to talk to her about that."
"- and there's this elephant who's going on a vacation, but he's got a cold -"
"Sounds very educational."
"- and guess how big his boogers are!"
Dean looks at Eloise and folds his arms on the edge of the tub, his sleeves pushed up over his elbows. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
His oldest daughter spreads her arms as wide as she can and Rosalie screams, "big enough to fill his trunk!" Eloise grunts at her little sister - who's now laughing hysterically in the way only little kids can get away with - for stealing her thunder.
"Sounds like lots of washing getting done up there," calls Beka's voice from downstairs. Dean frowns dramatically and brushes a finger down over Eloise's nose.
"You heard the Lady of the House," he says. "Help your sister and don't forget to let the water out of the tub this time." Dean unfolds from his spot and heads to the door, pausing in the frame and turning back to look at his daughter, who's grabbing the soap. "Hey, Leeze, I don't remember that book."
She raises her eyes and gives him a look that is all Beka. "Dad, Uncle Sammy sent it for my birthday." Duh.
There's a heartbeat and then Dean finds a smile. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Uncle Sammy always did think he was a real riot." Excluding the time he spent taking himself too seriously, of course.
The door is closed behind him and Dean moves to his bedroom. It's quaint and lived in, with dark wood floors and handmade rugs found at flea markets. There's a quilt on the bed that Beka's mom made them as a wedding present and a rocking chair in the corner that they'd bought when Eloise was born. Sometimes Dean can't believe it's his, this room, that he helped make it what it is. After how he'd lived, what did he know about normal?
Apparently, stuff like that works itself out. Dean can't help but think that Sam didn't have it so wrong after all, which is an irony that makes his chest ache just a little.
The room is so familiar to him that Dean doesn't need to turn on the light in order to change out of his shop clothes. The shirt with the grease stains and the logo reading 'Winchester Auto Body' gets thrown in the hamper, Dean's pendant hanging cool on his skin for a moment before he tugs on a worn out long-sleeve shirt and pushes up the sleeves. Navy pants are traded for jeans and Dean sits on the edge of the bed, hurriedly made and lumpy.
Listening to the low murmur of his daughter's voices from the bathroom, he puts a hand to his chest, high, on the left side. He knows the scars there so well, has traced them so many times, that Dean can feel them perfectly through his shirt.
What Dad did... he thinks maybe he understands it a little more everyday. Because he's been married for eight years now but every time he sees Beka he finds something new to love about her. How she hums bad country songs when she thinks no one is listening, or the way she braids Eloise's hair. Little things. Things that Dad must have found in mom, too.
If he ever lost Beka the way Dad lost mom - Dean isn't sure he wouldn't do the same thing that his father had done.
"You're thinking loudly today."
Dean starts at her soft voice but relaxes as Beka steps up and pushes to stand between his legs, wrapping his head and shoulders gently in her arms. He presses his face against her breasts and lets his hands rest on her hips for a moment before pulling her closer, tighter. Beka strokes her fingers through his hair as he breathes her in. When he sits up she traces the side of his face and gives a quiet smile that he knows means only if you want to talk about it. Dean's still not great with sharing his feelings, probably never will be. But the patience that Beka gives him in the matter is something that Sam never did. And without someone to fight against him, Dean finds himself folding faster, easier.
"I hope those cookies burnt out of spite."
She smiles, a look he finds himself unable to contemplate living without. "It was sheet-wide mutiny."
There's a chuckle. "Nash will eat them anyway."
"Dean?"
He looks at her face, the left side highlighted by the glow of the Christmas lights out the bedroom window. Her high cheekbones and soft eyes and the lips he's gladly lost himself in more times than he can remember. "The lights are too much this year, aren't they?"
The insecurity is rare for him and hard to admit and makes her smile - a reaction that tightens his own features into the mask he's never forgotten how to slip on. "Stop it," Beka says, grabbing his chin as he starts to look away. "I love the lights," she admits quietly. Something hot and grateful uncurls in Dean's stomach. "Eloise told me today that she wants you to do lights for Valentine's Day too. Pink lights."
Dean laughs and twists his head to kiss her fingers. "I have to draw the line somewhere."
"Oh, yes. You're very good at drawing lines with the girls." Beka laughs and taps his nose, stepping away from his hold. Noise in the hallway turns her head and she reaches up, pointing a finger out the door. "Rosalie Lynn, don't you dare go downstairs naked." And then she's moving out of the room, hips swaying a commanding beat.
Dean watches the shadows in the hall from the bathroom light until all the women in his life are in the girls' bedroom and there's just muffled noises left to keep his attention. He looks out the window. The lights are good. The tree is up, presents sent from Beka's family already underneath it. There's a Christmas movie for later and cookies for Santa for even later than that.
There's irony in the fact that Dean lets his children believe in Santa Claus but doesn't let them know of the real things that wait in the shadows, the Boogey Men and the werewolves that are far more real than a jolly fat man in red sweats.
Lesser of two evils, maybe. After all, Santa's content with eating the cookies.
So. Lights, check. Tree, check. Cheer, check. Then why does Dean feel like there's something that he's missing? There's nothing more he can decorate, nothing else that Beka can cook. He's unsure what he's still trying to fill. The girls aren't wanting for anything; tomorrow they'll have too many presents anyway.
Dean's fingers ghost against the upper left side of his shirt again. He's staring out the window when the sound of his family heading downstairs reaches into the room and interrupts his thoughts. Dean smiles as he hears Rosalie ask why they can't have chicken nuggets on Christmas Eve and his hand drops into his lap. Beka sticks her head into the room. "Dinner," she says with a quiet smile before disappearing. Her footsteps down the stairs are as soft as the expression was.
In the kitchen, Beka already has the table set and Eloise and Rosalie in their chairs when Dean joins them. He puts his hands out automatically, palms up, and both girls do the same, showing him how clean they are. "Pruney," he says with a smile. Eloise giggles and Rosalie frowns, examining her fingers.
Dean never imagined how important dinners around a table would become to him. They are something that he never insists on, but Beka knows and quietly makes sure that the family is settled and eating together every night.
Beka cuts Rosalie's food and Dean steals a bite of macaroni with a grin. When Eloise steals a bit too, her sister starts to yell and then the law comes to town, mom taking food from both their plates and putting it back on Rosalie's to quiet her.
"She's such a baby," Eloise says, looking upset.
Beka cuts a glance in Dean's direction. "Your father's not much better. Don’t forget to eat your green beans too, Leeze." The long face doesn't go away, but their oldest daughter eats every single one of the beans on her plate before dinner is over. Rosalie leaves a full half of her pile, which Dean finishes after she's been excused.
Finishing the last of his beer, Dean rises to help clean the table and he reaches in front of Eloise to take her empty plate. She's still grumping over what happened even though her sister's mood has passed and Rosalie is currently running through the kitchen and living room in her red and green pajamas singing, "Jingle bells! Batman smells, jingle all the way! Jokermobile lost a wheel when he went away!" Dean bends to kiss the top of Eloise's head. He understands exactly how she feels about her sister right now.
"Dad," she says in a grumble, "she's not even singing the right words."
"Your sister makes up her own words to 'Happy Birthday," Dean replies with a shrug.
He remembers Jingle Bells the way he and Sam used to sing it, full of 'shotgun shells' and 'Dad sure smells,' and 'nothing gets away.' The thought makes him smile with one side of his mouth as he puts the plates in the sink.
Fingers scratch through the hair at the nape of his neck and over his shoulder Beka says, "I see the smoke coming out your ears," as she passes him. His wife makes it look easy, grabbing the running Rosalie in the living room in one deft move and dumping her onto the couch. From the sound of it, tickling follows. Dean sees Eloise perk up a little, pretending not to notice the laughter, but it's already a lost battle. Soon enough there's a tangle of girly limbs taking up the couch.
So it is that Dean's the only one who hears the bell over the shrieking and laughter and even though he's got his hands full of their soapy reindeer-themed plates, he's the one who goes to answer the door, dishtowel in hand.
Dean expects a neighbor with a pie or presents for the girls, maybe. He expects Beka's older brother because the man doesn't live far enough and he can't cook in the same way Dean can't cook. A small, tiny bit of him even still expects something with yellow eyes.
What he doesn't expect is Sam.
Dean stands there, staring at his brother as the girls laugh and yell in the background. He hasn't seen Sam in seven months, only gets a call every now and then when their schedules intersect. The kid looks good - better than Dean ever wants to admit that Sam can look without his big brother's constant supervision. He's in slacks and dress shoes, and his long black professional jacket has its collar up to block the wind. Sam's hair is still too long - even now that he's a big-shot lawyer - but some things never change.
There's a bag over his shoulder.
"Beka called," Sam says, his words muffled by the black collar. White breath puffs up and crosses his face. "She said you had a sofa bed with a spring that'll dig right into my spine. Better than a chiropractor."
That same hot, grateful feeling from earlier blossoms outward from his stomach. Dean's face breaks into a smile and he steps aside to clear the door. "You might not be able to handle it, wuss."
"Jerk."
Dean is grinning like an idiot. Feeling a bit like one, too. He'd been working so hard to give his kids all the things he didn't have during Christmas, but he'd forgotten the most important, the one thing that made all the difference.
Behind his brother, another figure steps to the door and Sarah pokes her head around Sam's arm with a smile. "Merry Christmas! And really, the brother thing is touching, but I'm freezing."
By then getting inside is a wasted effort, however, because the girls have spotted the guests and the noise increases by decibels as Eloise tries to climb into Sam's arms and Rosalie latches onto Sarah. Beka makes it look easy, working around the kids to kiss them both on the cheek as Dean tries to move bodies in order to close the door. He catches Beka's eye and she just smiles because she's known all along and kept it a secret.
It's three hours later when the girls are finally asleep and Sarah's helping Beka wrap presents that Dean and Sam are standing out on the back porch together. Dean's holding a cup of coffee, the steam twisting up away into the night. Sam's mug is on the railing, his hands shoved into his pockets.
"These lights are god-awful," he says, twisting awkwardly to try and look at the house without letting the cold air into his coat.
Dean looks himself, even though he's seen them before. "Yeah," he says with a smile.
"Hey." Sam turns his attention to Dean for a moment and then looks out into the backyard. "I wanted to tell you something."
There's that tone to Sam's voice that Dean knows, even though his brother's hardly said anything. "You're gonna get chicky on me, aren't you?"
"No, Dean, don't -"
"Want some tissues? A pink shirt? Midol?"
Sam looks at Dean, the patience of a younger sibling at work in the clenching of his jaw. "Dude," he says, which is - as far as Dean is concerned, anyway - not lawyer-speak, but it's so easy to fall back into the banter of a lifetime, "you've got Rainbow Bright riding a reindeer in your living room."
There's a beat missed and Dean looks at Sam, purses his lips. Finally, "touché." A comfortable silence stretches between them then, thick and sated. It's a winter silence, with snow settling and frozen things cracking. Dean takes a sip of his coffee and his eyes slide over the rim of his mug. "So?" he asks after he swallows.
Sam snorts white and looks away. He takes another moment of that winter hush with his hands pushed deep into his pockets before he says, "I'm going to propose to Sarah. I thought that I could, you know, do it here. Maybe tomorrow."
Dean looks over at his brother. "Do you have the ring?" Sam nods and stays quiet, pulling a hand free to slip inside his coat and take out a small, black velvet box. The ring is gorgeous; Dean puts his coffee down to turn it under the glow of the Christmas lights.
"You know," he says. "She'll love it. Girl's always been a fool for you. Even that first time, when you almost wussed out on her." He snaps the box closed and hands it back.
"Shut up," Sam says petulantly, but Dean knows the flush in his brother's cheeks isn't all from the cold. The ring is shoved away to safety.
Dean picks up his coffee and cradles it, leaning his forearms on the railing. In the backyard, the swing set is just a phantom shape underneath the snow. The few trees back here have Christmas lights wrapped around them and the fence actually has 'Happy Holidays' spelled out on it, facing the side street. "It'll be all you need," Dean says quietly. "Her. Kids. It's a good life." He looks down at his coffee, the steam just wisps now. "I'm glad... you know. That you're here."
There's a shuffle of large feet. "Yeah," Sam says. And that's all. But it's enough.
From inside, Rosemary Clooney starts to sing. Dean tilts his head down and over and looks at Sam, back-lit by the house and grinning like a kid. Here was the most important thing, the one thing that made all the difference.
Through the years we all will be together,
If the Fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now.