spnmysteryyears | #9-3 FIC: "No More Let Sorrows Grow," Part the Last (Rated PG-13)

Go here for Part V.

The tinkling of a bell wakes Dean up from where he’s fallen asleep, sprawled on his stomach across the motel room bed.

Jimmy Stewart is explaining about angels and bells to little Zuzu, who’s aglow with holiday happiness.

The remote is digging into his left calf, and he retrieves it and shuts off the family laughter.

Groaning, he rolls to peer up the ceiling, wondering what time it is.

It’s gotta be well after midnight.

Christmas.

The last fragments of the memory are still fresh, like he’s just gotten done reliving it, a faded pain in his heart muscle suggesting that there are things he’s never really gotten over or given up.

Sighing, telling himself to quit the bullshit whining, Dean gets up, uses the bathroom, splashes water on his face, figures he’ll go to bed for real now, maybe get some quality sleep.

Except when he comes back to the room itself, it’s still Christmas. The storm outside still reminds him of Michigan and Minnesota and that Christmas Eve.

He picks up his cell phone and considers calling Dad.

Reconsiders when he sees in the glowing display that it’s actually past two a.m.—must’ve caught the movie on an all-night marathon.

Besides, Dad isn’t big on the holidays anymore.

Never really was, after mom died.

But there was that Christmas at Pastor Jim’s.

Before he can think it through, wonder if Sam’s really going to want to hear from him in the middle of the night where he’s staying with friends, the friends that took him in when Dean told him he had a hunt for the holidays, Dean’s hitting “send.”

“Hey,” Sam says, and Dean can hear in the background a lot of happy noise, a party in full swing by the sounds.

“Hey, Sammy. Just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

There’s a pause, and then the background noise is muffled and Sam is saying, “Are you okay? Is Dad okay?” in a serious, worried voice.

“I’m fine. Dad’s…Dad. I’m just holed up riding out a blizzard in East Buttfuck, Kansas, and it made me think of that Christmas Eve, you know the one we spent at Pastor Jim’s?”

This pause has a different quality, somehow, and Dean feels like a fool, feels like there’s a million miles between them and it was a bad idea to call. “But, hey, you’ve got that party, so… .”

“I remember you got me that big book about animals of North America. With all the pictures and the facts. I drove you and Dad crazy for a month asking you stupid questions about river otters and porcupines.”

Dean laughs around the tightness in his throat. “Yeah, and remember what we gave Dad?”

“How could I forget? I think I can still say the holy water blessing in my sleep.”

“You having a good time there, Sammy?”

He means at Sammy’s friend’s house, yeah, but maybe California, too, maybe normal life most of all.

“Yeah, Dean. I’m… .” This time, the pause means something, but Dean doesn’t push, doesn’t want it to end with the kind of silence that comes between them when they hit the wall that time and space and experience have been building brick by brick for a year and a half or more now.

“Things are good. I like my classes, and my friends are cool.”

A swell of noise suggests that someone’s come into the room where Sam is. There’s a muted exchange.

“I’ll let you go,” Dean says into the space between the phone and Sam’s ear.

“No, it’s alright. I’ve got time. They just needed to know if I’m okay to drive later.”

Dean laughs. “I coulda told ‘em that.”

“Shut up,” but it’s said fondly.

The quiet this time is companionable.

“You still have the pocket knife?”

“You know I do,” Dean asserts, glancing toward his jeans, slung over a chair-back at the little table by the window.

“Wish I had that book.”
“Nah, what would your big college friends think if they saw you with that ratty old kid’s book? You’d lose whatever little bit of cool you’ve been able to scrape together.”

“Maybe,” and there’s a laugh in Sam’s voice, and confidence, and a sense that his little brother is easy in his skin.

“Merry Christmas, Sammy,” Dean says after the pause grows long enough that he can hear the hum of the hundreds of miles between them.

“Merry Christmas, Dean.”

Then, as he’s about to hang up, he hears Sam say something else.

“What’s that?”

“Just…take care, huh?” And there are all kinds of things Sammy doesn’t say, but Dean hears them.

He tries to put the same into his response: “Yeah, I will. You, too.”

This time he waits for his brother to hang up. Just before the line goes dead, he hears a chorus of off-key voices raised in drunken song.

Joy to the world…

It’s not the worst Christmas he's ever had, anyway.

Peace,
SW