Chapter Text
December 24th, 2003
It was creeping toward eight o’clock on December 24th and Dean Winchester was alone.
He stared vacantly at the reflection of the red and green lights dancing along the dashboard of the Impala. At his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. It was only when the first notes of WHAM!’s Last Christmas cover blared through a nearby store’s speaker and over the idling Impala engine that he shook himself out of his daze.
“…This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special…”
Dean inhaled deeply through his nose, blinking moisture back into his eyes in attempt to focus. Suddenly he was a real person again. A real person with a real body and real big problems. His hands were cold. They hurt.
He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. Flexed his fingers a couple of times before blowing some warm air into his cupped palms.
“…Once bitten and twice shy…”
He checked his watch before he could help it, feeling a fresh wave of dread pile on to the bottomless pit inside him. He was twenty-three now. Couldn’t expect to spend the holidays with family forever.
His dad was rarely around this time of year. That wasn’t new. Sammy apparently didn’t have time to grab a beer with the brother he hadn’t seen in months. That wasn’t exactly new now either. The kid had answered a total of two calls since his first semester in Stanford.
Dean was used to it by now. Or, at least, he told himself he was. Take it one day at a time, put one foot in front of the other, kill the next monster and the next. Just keep on truckin’ and time will pass before you know it. Simple as that.
Empty as that.
A blonde woman exited the store he was parked next to; the door held open by a tall dude in a douchey expensive looking coat. They smiled at each other, eyes sparkling in the twinkling lights of the tree in the window display. Hands reaching for hands like they had to make up for the split second of lost time not wrapped up in one another. The dude spun her around on the pavement, dancing for a moment to the music as if it belonged just to them.
“…Now I know what a fool I’ve been… But if you kissed me now, I know you’d fool me again...”
Dean watched them go, his jaw clenched and lips curled into a pout that was threatening to become permanent at this point.
It’d been a month since things had ended with Lee. Six weeks, four days to be exact (but who was counting?) since his dad rolled up in Arizona and found them out. The beating was the easy part. That was familiar. Even the silence, heavy with disgust and disappointment, was expected. Dean was used to letting people down. Hell, he’d almost gotten comfy with the idea that he’d never be good enough for his old man. Almost made his peace with the fact that John Winchester’s son was a…
Dean swallowed hard, blocking out the echo of his dad’s yelling. He’d gotten lucky, he supposed, that he’d held off in front of Lee until their place in Arizona was a speck in the rear view mirror.
He’d never even got to say goodbye.
His eyes darted to the glove box, betraying his resolve to not think about Lee or dumbass holidays or how entirely fucking alone he now was, and to the tape inside. Lee’s tape. His hands reached inside before he could stop himself. He knew he’d never get through listening to one side of the tape without wanting to drink himself into next week. Which, now he thought about it, didn’t seem like the worst idea. But it was all he had left – that and the beaded bracelet that lived on his wrist – of the boy he’d been falling for.
Like the stupid son of a bitch he was.
Beneath the tape was a lone CD case. He didn’t have a CD player – no way he’d do that to Baby. But he’d know that handwriting anywhere.
Setting the tape aside, Dean grabbed the case, holding it up to the flashing lights shining through the window. A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he read through the tracks: Blink 182, Drowning Pool, My Chemical Romance. The only asshole he knew that dared call that crap “music” was almost two hundred miles away.
Dean thought back to the last time he’d talked to Ricky, feeling his cheeks flush beyond embarrassment and all the way up to shame. He’d been hammered; not the fun kind or the numb kind, but flat out I am so fucking lonely and pathetic and this drink is starting to taste like nothing is ever going to be okay again kind. He remembered little of the call. Maybe he cried, but maybe Ricky didn’t know that. All he knew was that the dude had him laughing before his bruised eyes had drifted off to sleep, phone still pressed to his cheek.
He often caught himself wondering how Ricky was doing. The thought of that small town in the ass crack of nowhere felt like a cage to Dean. He’d spent less than a week there with idle hands and a racing head and that was too much for him. But Ricky lived there. Chose there.
Dean remembered what the guy said that night on the balcony, how he wasn’t a stranger in his own body anymore. On the outside, Ricky didn’t have much more than he had. They were the same in so many ways. But the guy had something Dean knew he’d never have; a kind of peace that was never meant for fuck ups like him.
He’d had a taste of it in Arizona. Just a damn taste.
It was more than he deserved.
Dean traced a finger along the crack on the plastic CD case. Another holiday song blasted over the store’s speakers.
He remembered that day in the diner: Ricky storming off mid-shift after that phone call from his mom. Remembered the look in those big brown eyes in the moonlight when he’d told Dean what she’d said. Stop calling, stop sending presents.
Maybe Dean wasn’t the only one spending this stupid Hallmark cash-grabbing holy bullshit holiday alone.
His eyes drifted to the graffitied phonebooth across the street; the glass fracturing the reflections of thousands of twinkling lights. It stood beneath a streetlamp decorated with an LED angel; its halo and wings flashing off and on sporadically, like the thing was just waiting to die.
“Before my mom died, she used to tell me angels were watching over me.”
He could almost see Ricky, cheek pressed against the metal bars of the motel balcony, as he said, “Did you believe her?”
“Trust me. If there’s an angel out there, I’m not on its list. Not for nothin’ good, anyhow.”
He could do it. Phone a friend, wish him merry crap and jolly whatever. It was no big deal.
Ricky wasn’t Lee. He didn’t know the life. Had no idea how dark this fucked up world really was. It’d been easy like that with Lee. Dean never had to explain shit. They could go all night, hunting nasty sons of bitches and coming back to their place – it was always their place, not the motel – covered in gore and grinning like they had it all figured out. Lee would pull him close by the loop of his belt and kiss him hard and fast until they forgot every ugly thing they’d seen and done and tasted nothing but the sweat on each other’s skin and…
He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. Couldn’t keep living in that fantasy they’d built for themselves. Whatever they were, whatever they could’ve been, it was dead and gone and it wasn’t coming back. He’d never see the boy that turned his whole world inside out again. Never hear those first few awkward strums of his acoustic nor the amateur singing voice accompanying it.
Which was fine. Peachy. Probably for the best anyhow.
God, he really was pathetic.
Dean hiked the collar of his dad’s leather jacket higher against his neck, the leather doing little to fend off the chill creeping into the car.
He needed… something. Someone. Needed to get out of his own head and away from all these broken dreams and living nightmares and his dad’s voice and his brother’s silence. But it was impossible not to think about the people he loved when it was plastered on every store front, playing on every radio station and TV channel. Everywhere he looked held the reminder of family and love and home and all the shit that he didn’t have because he didn’t deserve it. Any of it.
But he was still here, still exhausted from a ghost hunt, and much as he wanted to, he couldn’t sit in his car and wait out the holidays. Dean grabbed a fistful of loose change from his pocket and shut off the engine. He paused with his hand on the door handle, glancing around the empty street before dropping his gaze to the CD once more.
One phone call. That’s all it was. Didn’t have to mean anything. Besides, it was late; the diner could be closed by now.
The thought of that got him moving.
A frosted cobweb glittered across the door of the phone booth and Dean swiped it away with his keys. He knew the number for Billie’s diner by heart now from all the almost-calls. He didn’t get why he was being such a pussy about this. Ricky was just a friend. He was a good guy. Easy company once you got over all that… Ricky.
He dropped the change into the slot and punched in the first couple of digits. The buttons were cold beneath his touch.
Just do it, you god damn coward.
Dean hit the last number and held his breath as that initial silence before the dial tone stretched on forever.
The phone rang and rang and rang.
Dean sighed, his warm breath pluming in the icy booth like smoke. He pressed his face against his forearm, eyes squeezed shut. He wanted to punch something. Wanted to scream and break this stupid fucking phone and bloody his useless hands against this glass and…
“What?” A grainy voice drew out the word through the phone. Dean froze. “It’s closin’ time. What the f– what can I possibly do for ya?” The tone switched real fast from almost whiny to falsely pleasant.
Dean almost dropped the phone in his scramble to bring it back to his ear.
“Hello?” Ricky pushed, cursing soundly into the receiver.
“How ‘bout service with a smile?” Dean teased.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, but before Dean could speak:
“That you, Kansas?”
Dean could hear the smile in Ricky’s voice. Pictured him running a hand through that stupid mullet – was it still pink? – still wearing that blue Billie’s apron over his “Kiss Me, I’m Loaded” shirt. Brown eyes lighting up the whole damn room.
“How’s it goin’, asshole?” Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat. God, it was good to hear a familiar voice. Just like that, some of the weight lifted from his weary shoulders. For just a moment, he could almost ignore the loneliness pressed up against the glass outside of the booth, waiting to swallow him whole when the line went dead.
“Well, if it ain’t the ghost of Christmas past,” Ricky said, sounding closer than before, like he’d been holding the phone at arms-length before. “Or Chanukah or… what, hey!” his voice trailed off for a moment as he spoke to someone else.
Dean snorted. “I catch you at a bad time?”
“Gimme a second.” A shuffling noise sounded at the other end, followed by the distinct click of a closing door and the jingling of keys. Ricky’s voice was far off when he said, “absolutely not. Nope. Read the sign, my guy… Closed… Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too.” Footsteps grew closer and Dean rolled his eyes fondly at the long-suffering sigh before the guy picked the phone back up. “Can you believe this guy?”
Dean knew him well enough to recognise it was a rhetorical question. “If you’re busy, I can–“
“No! No, man, it’s good to hear from ya. Been a while, huh?”
Dean tensed at the memory of their last call. “Uh, yeah. About that…”
“Don’t say it. Shut up.”
“What?” Dean frowned out at the cars passing through the street beyond.
“Don’t apologise. Don’t make it weird. It’s cool. Where you at anyhow, man?”
Dean’s mouth worked for a moment before the words could come out. Weeks of crushing humiliation over his drunken vulnerability evaporated from his soul, leaving him weightless. Somewhere beyond the wave of relief, the realisation of how much Dean actually missed this guy hit him pretty hard.
He squinted against the headlights passing him by. “Not too far from you, actually,” he lied. What was a couple hundred miles without sleep to Dean anyhow?
“That so?” Ricky said, that familiar smug smile back in his voice. “Well, you’re always welcome to haunt me, Michael. You know that.”
Michael. There was something about the way Ricky said the fake name, and not just that he’d always insisted on calling Dean “Mike” before now. Dean had regretted the lie the moment it passed his lips. He’d been so caught up in Ricky’s whole brazen deal, thinking about how his stupid mullet reminded him of David from The Lost Boys that he’d pulled the lead’s name right out of the movie. Dean had decided then and there that some dots were best left unconnected.
“Reckon you haven’t listened to a decent record since I turned tails on that hell hole. Maybe I ought’a show up and change that. If you got nothin’ better to do,” he added with a slight drop down in his cockiness, winding the cord of the phone absentmindedly through his fingers.
“You know where to find me, dickhead,” Ricky laughed.
And just like that, the holiday crisis was averted.