78. Chapter 78

“Okay, let’s get this thing decorated,” Gabriel said, cracking his knuckles. He stared up at the tree with narrowed eyes, as though trying to envision exactly what he wanted it to like. Dean knew what was going to happen a split second before it did and lurched upright, reaching out to grab his hands around his uncle’s.

“No, don’t!” he blurted out.

Gabriel’s eyebrows furrowed. “You… don’t want the tree decorated?” he asked, sounding a little baffled. “I know I don’t know much about humans, kiddo, but I’m pretty sure they all decorate their trees.” He freed a hand and waved it to indicate the bare Christmas tree taking up a good quarter of the living room. It had been standing there for the past day so that it could dry out before anything was put on it.

“I know they do. That’s why you guys bought all that stuff,” said Dean. “But using angel mojo… it’s cheating.” He mumbled the last part, not looking his uncle in the eye. It was a little embarrassing to know how strongly he felt about this. When he thought about the day he and Mary had put decorations on the tree, they’d done it by hand. His mother had put the lights on while Dean sat by her feet and watched, awed by the pretty, shiny strands, and then she’d helped him to hang ornaments. It just didn’t seem right for Gabriel to snap his fingers and have the tree be transformed.

“Cheating,” Gabriel repeated. “Even though they’re not mojo’d decorations?”

“Even then,” Dean said, letting go now that he could be sure Gabriel understood. Or sort of understood. “But, um, if it’s too much effort, I get it.”

The wrinkle between Gabriel’s eyebrows smoothed out, and he smiled. “Baby boy, I got stabbed by the Morningstar himself and managed to survive. Putting a few lights on a tree is nothing.” He bent and grabbed one of the strands of lights that Anael had told them to buy.

Based on what Dean remembered of his mother trying not to swear while she put lights on the tree, Dean wasn’t so sure of that. But he really liked and appreciated that Gabriel was willing to try. He backed up towards the couch and sat, letting Sparks crawl into his lap and curl up. The kitten was watching the end of the lights wiggle as Gabriel worked with eyes that were very bright.

“Don’t get comfortable. We have work to do,” Castiel said, moving into the room.

“Work?” Dean said, turning his head and realizing that Castiel was holding a tray. His daddy carried the tray over to the coffee table. Dean stared at it in confusion, wondering what all of this was for. He saw glitter, green felt, ribbons, beads, buttons, pipe cleaners, pine cones, paint, just to list off a few things, but there was nothing to indicate what all of it was for. He raised questioning eyes to his daddy, who smiled.

“I thought we could make some ornaments for the tree. Anael tells me that Charlie loves to create her own ornaments, and that they’ve amassed quite a collection which Charlie adds to every year. They also do ornaments out of salt dough.”

“Salt dough,” Dean repeated blankly.

“Once Gabriel puts the lights on the tree, he can mix it up for us. It’s very easy,” Castiel told him, sitting down beside Dean. “In the meantime, we can start on these.”

Dean looked at the array of art supplies. “What am I supposed to do with this?” He didn’t remember doing this with his mom. Maybe they hadn’t had enough money for it. Or maybe his memory was just crappy. Either way, he was really hoping that Castiel didn’t just expect him to know what to do because his brain was drawing a big fat blank. He hadn’t even touched a pipe cleaner since Sam was in elementary school.

“I looked some things up online,” Castiel said, sounding very proud of himself. He took his phone from his pocket and showed a few different websites to Dean. Nothing looked overly complicated, though Dean did flush a little as he took in all the pictures of actual, physical toddlers doing the work.

“But these decorations won’t look as nice as the ones you bought,” Dean said. Sleepy though he might have been, he had paid a little attention to what Gabriel and Castiel were buying. Most of the decorations were very pretty and obviously made by people with years of experience. He had a hard time believing they would be able to create anything of quality with pine cones and pipe cleaners.

“That doesn’t matter to me. They’ll have been made by you, and that makes them special,” Castiel said gently. “I would much rather have imperfect decorations crafted by your hands than perfect ones that weren’t.”

Dean had to swallow at the unexpected surge of emotion those words invoked, and looked back at the phone so that Castiel wouldn’t be able to see his face. All he could think about in that moment was the time he’d painted a mug for John in art class. He couldn’t remember what school it had been or how old he was at the time, but he did remember how proud he’d been as he brought the mug home. John had glanced at it, made a lackluster comment about how it was ‘nice’, and set the mug aside.

That night, when John had burst into the hotel room and bundled Dean and Sam into the Impala for a quick get-away because the vampires he’d been hunting had turned out to be the local sheriff and deputy, the mug had been left behind. Dean knew that only because he’d gathered the courage to ask John about it a few weeks later, and John’s completely blank look had spoken volumes.

“Okay,” he said, when he thought he could speak without his voice shaking. “What are we making first?”

He could feel Castiel’s worried glance, but all Castiel said was, “I thought we’d start with the pine cones.”

“Okay,” Dean repeated, frowning slightly. He wasn’t sure what they were going to make with pine cones, but he took the brush that Castiel handed him. At first he thought they were going to use paint, but then Castiel opened up a pot of glue.

“Go ahead, little one,” Castiel coaxed, smiling at him.

Uncertainly, Dean dipped the paintbrush into the glue and ran it across each layer of the pine cone. It was harder than he’d expected to get every crevice covered without leaving gobs of glue behind, and he stuck his tongue out to better concentrate. When he was sure he’d gotten all of it, Castiel handed him another pot. This one, Dean discovered, was filled with silver glitter.

“Like this,” Castiel said, pinching the glitter with his fingertips and sprinkling it over the pine cone. The glitter stuck to the glue.

“It’s gonna make a mess,” Dean pointed out.

Castiel shrugged. “So?”

Dean supposed that when you were an angel, a mess was far less daunting. So he shrugged and grabbed a generous pinch of glitter, spreading it over the pine cone. He made sure that the pine cone had as much glitter attached to it as possible before he stopped, staring at it critically. Castiel leaned over with a loop of ribbon in his hand and glued it to the top of the pine cone. The glue dried instantly, like magic, and Dean suspected there was definitely a bit of angel mojo at play there.

But it was hard to be mad when Castiel took hold of the ribbon and held the pine cone so that Dean could see. It swayed gently, the light catching each individual bit of glitter and making it glitter. In spite of himself, Dean grinned. It might not have looked as pristine as the ones that they’d bought, but he couldn’t deny there was a certain charm about having done it himself.

“It looks great!” Gabriel said, right next to Dean’s ear, and Dean jumped.

“You’re not doing the lights?” he asked with a sly smile.

Gabriel scowled. “I gave up. Please, kiddo, can I use my mojo for just this one part?” He clasped his hands together and gave Dean a pleading look. “I promise that we’ll put the rest of the decorations up by hand, and I’ll make you French Toast for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Go ahead,” Dean said, more amused than he wanted to let on. Why hadn’t he and Sammy ever thought about setting up a trap with Christmas tree lights for angels? Based on how exasperated Gabriel looked right now, such a trap would’ve been pretty damn effective.

“Thank Father,” Gabriel muttered, snapping his fingers. Immediately the strands of lights vanished from the floor and reappeared on the tree, arranged in what could only be called perfect alignment. Dean stared at them, impressed. They’d chosen white lights for the tree, and already the tree was looking a lot more festive.

“If you’re done with the lights, you can mix up the salt dough,” Castiel said, handing Dean another pine cone.

“Can do.” Gabriel saluted and headed into the kitchen.

Dean decorated another two dozen pine cones, until he’d exhausted the pot of glitter. Castiel set the pine cones on a tray after gluing ribbons to the tops of each one, and then set them aside to dry. By that point, Gabriel had brought back a big tray of what looked like white clay stars, gingerbread men, reindeer, santa hats, and hearts. Each one had a small hole poked in the top, presumably where a ribbon would go. Dean poked at one, realizing that it felt exactly like hardened Play-Doh.

“I cheated,” Gabriel said, unashamed. “They’re supposed to cook in the oven for four hours, but I wanted us to decorate them now.”

“You said you were gonna use your mojo just for one thing, Uncle Gabe,” Dean said, but he wasn’t really that mad. He found that he was looking forward to using paints. Last time he’d painted something, it was the Impala after he’d spent hours pounding dents out of her. And the fine, detailed work that came with painting a car, even if he had been doing it at Bobby’,s couldn’t really be called fun.

“Four hours,” Gabriel repeated, cracking open a container of paint. The strong smell hit the room and Dean grinned, taking the new paintbrush Castiel handed him with a swell of excitement.

He surveyed the range of colors, trying to figure out which one he wanted to use first, and finally selected a bright red. He picked up one of the gingerbread men and started painting a red shirt onto it. The paint showed up nicely on the bland white clay. The decoration ended up with a red shirt, bright blue pants, two blue eyes, and a red smile. After a moment’s thought, he smirked to himself and turned it over to paint two blobby purple wings on the back of it.

“Look!” he proclaimed. “It’s Balthazar!”

Gabriel burst out laughing, followed shortly by Castiel. Dean beamed at them and carefully set the gingerbread man on the tray to dry out. Then he picked up a star and painted it yellow. Some of the paint rubbed off onto his fingers and he looked at them thoughtfully, then glanced up at his daddy and uncle. Neither of them were paying attention. Castiel was focusing on painting a reindeer brown, while Gabriel was painting a hat bright purple. Slowly, Dean smiled and dipped his fingers into the yellow paint.

“Daddy!” he called.

Castiel looked up, and Dean flicked his fingers. Yellow paint splattered across Castiel’s face, shirt, and hands. Castiel’s mouth dropped open. Gabriel started to laugh again, right up until Dean dipped his fingers back in the paint and then flicked them at his uncle. The laughter quickly turned into shocked stuttering. Two angels stared at him, dotted with paint, and it was Dean’s turn to giggle.

“Why, you little - !” Gabriel recovered first, grabbing the purple paint he’d been working with. Sensing what was coming, Dean scrambled off the couch with a shriek.

“Daddy, help!” he screamed.

“Help? After that? I think not!” Castiel grabbed the brown paint.

“Noooo!” Dean yelled, giggling, and took off with both of them in hot pursuit.

Needless to say, by the time they were finished, there was more paint on the three of them than on the decorations.