#jeez nebraska on christmas???

[brucespringsteencomments]

[minorkeepsakes]

Here’s part one of my little xmas fic! The Holiday Special Dean deserves. <3

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Fresh snow covered the prairie landscape, fell slowly onto ploughed cornfields, fence posts, the chilly heads of little brown sparrows and  twinkled in the golden sunlight of late afternoon . It was December 24th, and Jody Mills was bundled up in her big pick-up truck, driving along one of the bumpiest, least looked-after dirt roads in Kansas. In the passenger seat was a still frozen eight pound turkey and a green bean casserole. Jody hated green bean casserole, but it was just about the only vegetable Dean Winchester consumed over the holidays, so she made it. Every year.  

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir flickered in and out of frequency on the radio, as the nearest NPR station receded further behind her, and the wooded driveway leading up to the bunker finally appeared. This year, something was different; planted at the edge of the road was a shiny black mailbox with a little red flag, decorated with green pine boughs and velvety red ribbon. What that meant for all of them, but especially the boys, made Jody's heart swell up like an apple pan dowdy and she struggled to rein in her emotions as she turned up the drive.  

“Awe, jeez. Get a grip, woman,” she muttered, swiping that one inevitable tear off her cheek.

--

The antique shop had finally appeared on the roadside, just after Kaya diplomatically suggested that Claire may have imagined seeing it the last time she made the drive from Omaha to Lebanon. But here it sat. It was further outside of Lincoln than Claire remembered—nearly at the state line— but it looked just the same, a big red barn with Pennsylvania Dutch hexes painted along the exterior, like little pagan doilies, and rusty old milk cans the size of fire hydrants serving as barricades in the make-shift parking lot. The open sign dangled on the handle of an old hand plow near the door, despite the fact that it was Christmas eve and most small businesses were probably closed up already, and Claire couldn't help feeling that it was meant to be.

She parked the old Subaru and they made a dash for the entrance hand in hand, strong Nebraska winds stinging their cheeks and blowing light, dusty snow across their path.

--

Over the course of the morning, the bunker had quietly filled with the sweet scent of  mulled cider, which sat brewing in an ambitiously large cooking pot on a stove in the kitchen. Dean had spent breakfast tossing various spices and seasoning into the potent concoction— orange peel, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla beans—and taste-testing it while nursing his coffee and gnawing on strips of smokey, crisp bacon.

By early afternoon, Sam had hidden himself away somewhere, no doubt struggling to wrap his presents  in some presentable way. Somehow his technique hadn't improved much since he was 8 years old. Dean, in the meantime, had moved onto decorating the tree, which they'd only chopped down and dragged into the library the night before last, and had spent most of the day yesterday rigging up a hand-made tree stand to hold it upright. The tree was a wild white pine with long prickly needles and sap that had stuck to Dean's fingers like honey and he held them to his nose and breathed in the scent from time to time until it had finally washed away completely with a hot shower at the end of the day.

Now, Dean only needed to add the last of the decorations, which was no small feat considering the tree was so tall that it meant climbing a ladder to reach the highest branches. They'd found some vintage decorations in storage, tinsel, little straw animals and delicately frosted bulbs that had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper. But they'd needed more, and Dean had taken it upon himself to make them himself, explaining to Sam that this was what retired people did, wasn't it? Puttered. Dean was great at puttering. More specifically, welding and soldering little birds and bells with sheets of metal the Men of Letters had stored up for making specialized weapons. With their hunting days finally behind them, Dean had decided it was time for some creative repurposing.

--

It was as he hung the last decoration, a finely crafted and stately brass star for the top of the tree, when Jody texted him and Sam to meet her outside. Sam emerged swiftly from the bowls of the bunker, and they shoved their boots on and climbed the stairs together. It was snowing again, and colder than either of them had expected. Jody stood beside her truck, rosy-cheeked with her deerstalker cap and fluffy green parka, and smiled at them as they appeared before her.

“What, no coats?” she admonished quickly, a big bag of gifts in one hand and a casserole dish cradled to her chest with the other. “Well ya better hurry it up then. Turkey's riding shotgun and my overnight bag is in the back.”

Sam headed for the cab and Dean went for the turkey, which was the size of a Galapagos tortoise and covered in tin foil. “This is quite the beast, Jody. Damn. What is this, an 18 pounder?”

Jody winked, and blew some powdery snow off her nose. “Merry Christmas. Try not to eat it all in one sitting.”

tbc!