A Winter's Tale (Destiel Fanfiction)

(9) A Winter's Tale

"There's a gap."

"What are you talking about? It looks awesome."

"There's totally a gap, Dean."

"I don't see any gap."

"That's cause you're up on the ladder. You're not seeing it from the right angle. There's, like, ten million lights all on one side and none at all over here. It's like a black hole of no lights. Right here. Look from over here."

"Okay, wait a sec, let me get down—"

Dean clambered down from the ladder by the Christmas tree and walked around to where Sam was standing by the library table. Sam had a roll of wrapping paper in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. He was supposed to be on wrapping duty, but he was frowning at the tree.

The tree was, of course, "the thing" they'd been whispering to each other about last night. Dean stood back by Sam and took another look at it, hands on his hips.

Sam had somehow managed to pick up an eight-foot blue spruce last night, at the same store in North Platte where he'd grabbed all the Christmas lights. Sam had then made it the rest of the way home with the tree tied on the Impala roof, apparently with no problems. (Though he'd made a rather offhand comment this morning about "You know, your car really handles a lot differently in wind when there's a tree on the roof.") Last night, Sam had just hid the tree behind one of the other cars in the garage. Dean had gotten up an hour ago and dragged it down to the library all by himself. It was standing now in the nook that usually held the telescope; from here it was visible from the kitchen, the library, and also the tv room.

"See?" said Sam, gesturing with the scissors. "There's a gap."

Dean peered at the tree. Maybe Sammy was right. Maybe there was a tiny gap in the lights on one side.

"It's not a very big gap," Dean said. "It's, like, an inch or two."

"It's a gigantic black hole of no lights the size of the Milky Way Galaxy."

Dean snorted. "It's not that bad. I bet he's not even going to notice."

"Well, I'm going to notice. It's Cas's first Christmas tree and he just got home and he's been miserable and he's still sick and he deserves a good tree." Sam frowned, and added, "I guess there's a gap because there's not really a good branch there. It's a little uneven, huh? I wish I could have had more time to pick out a better tree, but this was pretty much all they had left. Also I was in such a hurry to get back here to fix up his room."

Dean clapped him on the shoulder. "Have you learned nothing from A Charlie Brown Christmas? You did totally awesome getting a tree at all at the last second like that, and it's a PERFECT tree and he's gonna love it. Also, it's not his very first Christmas tree, y'know. He probably saw a zillion of them back in Stonehenge."

Sam said, a worried frown still on his face. "It's his first tree with us. You know what I mean."

Dean grinned. "I do. And it's your first tree in donkey's years too. I'll rearrange the lights. No gap allowed for my baby brother. Or for my angel either. Hey, though—" He checked his watch. Ten a.m. "I should check on Cas. I want to be sure he's not, like, crawling a mile along the hallway floor to the bathroom on his own or anything. Be back in a sec. Can you get on with wrapping the presents?"

Sam nodded with a smile.

Dean glanced over his shoulder as he left the room. The tree actually looked pretty good. Maybe it wasn't perfectly symmetrical, sure; but the telescope nook framed it beautifully, it was glittering with what seemed like hundreds of little lights (maybe a little unevenly distributed, but whatever), and Dean was about half-done with the tinsel and ornaments.