Work Text:
This was it. Dean was officially an old person. Because who else than an old person would be handcrafting stupid Christmas cards at 2 pm on a Wednesday? Well, a kindergartner maybe would, but Dean was man enough to admit that at this point in time, he was closer to the retirement home than to preschool.
Dean hated glitter and Dean hated glue guns. Dean was a seasoned and badass monster hunter, not a 45 year old stay-at-home mom, so why was he doing this again? Oh yeah. Jack’s idea of a new personalized family tradition. And who was Dean to deny him? The kid had just died and deserved everything he wanted for his first Christmas in an apocalypse-less world.
Except the family had grown a lot over the last few years, and that was a lot of cards to craft. Especially for someone as bad at it as Dean clearly was.
He’d been at it for almost an hour now and all he had to show for himself was one very wonky scarlet monstrosity that he was thinking of gifting to Sam. He’d drawn on it what he hoped looked like a reindeer, but might actually be closer to a moose, so he guessed it was fitting enough for his brother.
For Cas, because if they were doing cheesy Christmas cards Dean might as well go all in, he’d decided to cut his card in a heart shape. He’d thought, because he was a pro at dicing, slicing and cutting into all kinds of things—from a good steak to a nasty werewolf—that the cutting part would be a piece of cake, but so far…it was not a successful attempt.
Not only did the piece of paper he’d been working on look nothing like a heart—and not even the actual organ—but Dean had managed so far to cut his fingers more than anything else.
At least there was some kind of artistic flare to the dark blood stains he’d left all over his work.
Dean was thinking very seriously of getting rid of all this crap and go buy not-that-nice commercial cards he’ll pretend he’s done by himself when he hears someone approaching.
Dean hurried to hide his pathetic handiwork under his duffel just as Cas appeared in the doorway. He had this peaceful smile he so often got these days, ever since he gave the Empty his grace in exchange for his life-debt and had become human.
Cas was definitely the best-adjusted newly human Dean knew (and he knew more than most people did). Cas always said that being human was so easy for him because he had Dean by his side, but Dean couldn’t help but doubt it. Cas was awesome, and definitely didn’t need Dean to be so. Dean was sure the bastard had already done all his Christmas cards and that he’d already been approached by an art collector to expose them at the Louvre. Or however these things worked.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas said, his smile rising up his cheeks. “What are you doing?”
“Hey, Cas. I was just, uh,” Dean glanced around for a lie that would hide his card-making inaptitude. There was nothing around but his duffle bag. “You know, checking on my weapons and stuff.”
“Oh,” Cas answered, as dubious as anyone would be, given Dean’s very bad fibbing. Man, and to think Dean used to be actually good at that.
Cas didn’t have the time to question Dean’s weird behavior though. As soon as Dean’s hands entered his field of vision, Cas’s smile turned into a frown. “Dean? What happened to your hands? Did you bleed?”
And then, Cas’s hands were all over him, and all of his peacefulness was gone. “Are you all right, Dean? Are you hurt anywhere else? Are you in pain? I’ll get the first-aid kit—”
“Calm down, Cas,” Dean cut him off. “Those are very superficial cuts. They’ve already almost completely cicatrized.”
“This is absolutely not true, Dean. I can clearly see that your left thumb is still bleeding.”
Dean let Cas take his hands in his in the hope that it would smooth down his frown a bit, but all it seemed to do was deepen it more.
“There are not a lot of things I regret about giving up my grace. The only fact that I got to stay with you is enough to make it worthwhile. I only wish that I still had the power to heal you with a touch.”
“C’mon, Cas. Don’t be like that. You know you’re an ace with the band aids, right? And that’s basically the same as what you did before.”
“It isn’t, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do. So let me do my thing too.”
Dean made the universal gesture for be my guest, and with the gentlest care, Cas took Dean’s hurt right hand towards his mouth, and softly applied his lips on each of his cuts. It felt a bit ticklish at first, but as Cas went on, turning Dean’s hand over before giving the same treatment to the other one, it hit Dean that this might be the cheesiest as well as the most romantic thing that had ever happened to him.
Cas might have lost his powers, but Dean still felt like he’d just been healed all over.
Maybe these Christmas cards weren’t such a bad idea after all. Dean hadn’t even received his first one, and his heart felt already fullest than it had ever been.