The Greatest Gift of All

Summary: 1-shot. A holiday fic in Dean's POV as he answers a question about what his greatest gift of all was while trying to give Sam something he feels his brother should have.

Warnings: None really, maybe a couple bad words and maybe a slight tissue warning, not sure.

Tags/Spoilers: Not tagged to anything. It happens after the latest episode 'Girls, Girls, Girls' and might have a couple spoilers.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Warning: I don't write in first person POV very often unless the story calls for it or the character starts talking to the muse in it and that's what happened in this case. Dean wanted to talk. This is basic fluff, schmoop, brother moments set around the holiday. Hope you enjoy it.

SPN SPN SPN SPN SPN

There was some time years ago, lifetimes ago these days, when I was still in grade school where the teacher asked the class to write about the greatest gift we'd ever gotten. I was probably seven and knew what I wanted to write about but even back then I knew how it might be taken so I did was I do so well…I lied.

Then I think I wrote about some toy that never existed because toys were few and far between from the time I was four years old and things changed drastically one night. A few years later when I hot middle school another nameless teacher in yet another school asked the class to write about a special gift that meant something to us. I gave a halfway truthful answer that time because then at least I had something to talk about: the amulet my little brother had given me the Christmas before but even that wasn't the greatest gift I'd ever been given.

There's been countless times in my life that I've been asked what was the greatest thing in my life or that I'd been given and I never did give a straight answer for a lot of reasons. Some people guessed my Dad's old leather jacket might have been it or the 1967 Chevy Impala that had been his but became mine when I hit 17 and they'd come close but no matter how much I loved the jacket or still love that car they weren't close to what I consider the greatest gift I'd ever been given.

Never once did I ever admit what that was to anyone. Not to my Dad, not to Caleb or Pastor Jim, not to Bobby or even to Cassie and I'd admitted a lot to her. Only Lisa came close to saying it to my face but she might've known it but she still didn't understand the scope of it. No one could because no one who hadn't lived our lives would ever be able to fully see or understand why I viewed that gift as so great.

31 years and the thought and knowledge that I'd been given the greatest gift ever possible one evening in May had never changed, no matter how much we've fought or the crap that's hit us and nearly destroyed us. To the day I finally take my last breath or my body's burned on a hunter's pyre the greatest gift of all in my mind, in my heart will still be the same thing as it's always been.

I don't say it, I don't admit it not because I don't want to but old habits are hard to break. I made the no chick flick rule and if I ever flat out said those words or did something to show how much he means to me, how important he's been to me since the first day our Dad took me to see him I'd end up with Holy water in my face again and I'm seriously tired of swallowing that stuff this month.

So I try to show it in other ways, little ways that might seem odd but won't get me demon tested or have the paranoid side in the kid coming out like it tends to when he worries about me, now especially, and tries to not let me know he's worrying that the Mark on my arm is taking me over again.

Doing those little things, giving him those little moment isn't easy these days. We've lost so much of the bond, the closeness that we had all our lives thanks to too much crap and interference by both sides that it often hurts to see the actual surprise in those damn big eyes when I do or say something that should be second nature but hasn't been in years.

Today it was another time someone asked me if I could name one thing special to me what it would be that got me thinking about things again. What was the greatest gift I'd ever been given? What was still the one thing that meant the most to me? It's not a thing at all but a person…a 6'4" big eyed, big hearted person who can still turn those damn puppy dog eyes on and I will usually end up giving in to them and him.

The greatest gift I was ever given? My pain in the ass little brother. "Sammy?"

Sam's been buried in the library here at the bunker all day. He said he was working to reorganize them too many dusty old books but I know what he's doing; he's scouring them for anyway to get the Mark of Cain off my arm before it takes me over again.

"Yeah? What's up?" Sam's only four years younger than I am but no matter what I can still look at him and see that same chubby baby he was when it all changed. Even now when he looks at me it's hard not to see the fresh faced college kid he'd been before our lives ruined his one shot at happiness. "Dean? You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," I am even though I know and he knows that we're both holding onto hope the cure lasts and we can find a way to remove this mark but that's not an issue today. Today is a day that I might be swallowing Holy water again but I will give him something; something that used to mean a lot to Sam. "Hey, can you come with me a second? I was snooping in the game room or parlor or whatever you call the room we stuck the TV."

"Y'mean where you stuck the TV," Sam corrected automatically but I still see him smile a little since he won't flat out say he doesn't enjoy being able to hook his laptop to the big screen and stream those documentaries only my big brained little brother would find interesting. "Sure, I was just finishing up."

He hasn't found anything yet. Sam's poker face still sucks but it's his voice that usually gives him away to me; that and the way he ducks his head or runs his fingers through his still too long hair. I can tell he's worried. "Hey, it's gonna be fine. Let it go for now, I want to show you something."

I know Sam's curiosity will win out over his surprise that I brought up that I knew what he was doing. I know he'll follow me. Hell, he's been following me since I taught him to walk. That's something that will never change.

Surprising Sam isn't easy, especially in this place since lately I haven't been able to make a move without him worrying I was going out and not coming back. So I had to resort to having Kevin's spirit hack into Sam's laptop which served to distract my little brother for the time I needed to go into town and grab what I needed to for this.

"Dean? You didn't freeze the TV or my laptop on porn again, did you?" Damn kid will never let me live that little mistake down even after I bought me a new laptop and swore not to watch porn on it.

"No, but only because you locked those damn channels which I should hurt you over," I shoot back because he'll expect snark and sarcasm. It's what he sees when he steps into the room off the library that I know Sam won't be expecting because he always did Christmas.

Christmas for Sam was always important. Even when it was just the two of us in some damn cheap motel room it was important to him. The last honest to God time I can recall us having a tree or decorations was the Christmas before I went to Hell. This year, this is what I wanted to give Sam.

I hear his small gasp when he steps into the room to see the 6 foot Spruce sitting there complete with lights, popcorn tinsel and a few in bad taste ornaments as well as a couple air fresheners…much like Sam had decorated our last tree with.

I'd strung other decorations up around the room to make it look like Christmas. There was even a couple actually wrapped in real wrapping paper presents under the tree for him.

"I'm not sick or possessed so leave the Holy water in your pocket cause I think I'm getting wrinkles from how much you guys have hit me with it lately," I tell him as I see him looking around the room; I see Sam's fingers touch a couple of the ornaments including one I know he'll know I took out of a box in the Impala's trunk.

We had very few ornaments or things left after the fire but Sam's 'Baby's First Christmas' one had because it had been in the car still because Mom hadn't brought it into the house yet. Over the years, when I could, I'd buy little ornaments from those stores that sold them to celebrate milestones but Sam had never seen those. Now he did.

For every milestone my little brother reached there was an ornament, including his first step, losing his first tooth…even though he lost that in my arm. There was a soccer one to show I remember his dream to play the sport despite Dad's disapproval. There was one when he graduated High School, college and I see when he finds the one because I can see him pause.

"I knew you were going to Law school so I got that one for when you became some big hot shot lawyer in LA defending guys with too much money and too little brains," I tell him to break the silence and because I could see his shoulders shaking, a sure sign I'd set myself up for the mother of all chick flick moments. "You can look at them all but…there's one I had made this year on the other side you might be interested in."

This was the tricky one. It wasn't easy to find a way to say everything I wanted to, everything I'd always meant to tell him or should've said or have it expressed in an ornament on a tree. I'd looked in stores and online until giving up and having Jody Mills, our surrogate mother figure so to speak or as she'd decreed herself to be the last time I talked to her, help me special order it online.

Sam's quiet which is never good but I stay still to let him look around the tree. I hear his snort of amusement at the scantily dressed ornament that I knew would make him smile and I see his fist clench and release when he finds the one I aimed him toward.

"Y'know how people have always asked me what the greatest gift I'd ever gotten was?" I ask him casually, fighting the urge to pace or rub the back of my neck nervously. "You asked me that a couple times because I would never answer anyone really."

"You…you said I should already know what it was without asking," Sam's not looking at me because those big hazel eyes have locked on the new ornament.

It's a simple ornament. Nothing fancy or too out there like some of them are because this wasn't meant to be like that. This was meant to say something that I hope there's still enough of the bond, of the little brother that once looked up to me to understand the point.

"Yeah, and I guess I thought you did know but I can see how you might not given that I wasn't always the greatest brother to you…these last few years especially but if you still want to know, if you still want to know what the greatest gift in my life has ever been? Turn the ornament over."

The photo on the front was of us shortly after Sam started hunting again and then of more recently before it all went wrong with the trials. In both Sam was laughing and that's my best memory ever was hearing my baby brother laugh, then and now.

I know I won't hear that laugh yet so I'm not expecting it. I am expecting the muffled sob he tries to hide when he sees the handwritten message on the back of the ornament because this is my little brother and despite it all, Sam still wears his heart on his sleeve so I know how this will hit him and I'm ready for that when he turns to me.

"It's you," I say in repeat of the simple message, offering a smile that only Sam gets to see because this is between us, between brothers. Not hunters, not sons, not former vessels to Heaven and Hell but brothers. "Mom gave me the greatest gift in my life the day you were born, Sammy. I don't say it enough, I don't show it enough or at least not in ways that you might want me to but never doubt that you are now and will be the one thing in my life that I will fight to protect and that I will fight this mark to keep."

I see him move and where normally I'd step back to break the moment or make some flip comment I don't. I let it happen and will call do-over in the morning or a few days depending on what suits me but for this moment I accept the arm full of little brother and just hold him like I haven't done in a long time.

Dad taught me to bury the emotion, to lock it up and I do. I have and that's managed to put a wedge between us because Sam tries so hard not to let me see his emotions these days, he's scared of saying the wrong thing and having me shut him out like I've done so often.

I won't tell him one of the reasons I'm doing this now. I won't tell him because I won't scare him, I won't take his hope away but in a huge way I did mean what I said to Cole in that alley. I do know how my story ends. I've known it for more years than I care to think and while I will never stop fighting, I won't stop Sam from fighting for me I also won't let it hurt my brother any more than I've ever done.

Regardless of what happens next week, next month or even next year; regardless if I go down in flames or if we both live to grow old and cranky I wanted to tell him this one thing, to show him the one thing I've never been able to fully but felt like he needed to know for sure.

"We'll get this off your arm, Dean," Sam's so certain and I won't argue with him since if there's one thing I know about my little brother is that if Sam sets his mind to something then he'll find a way to do it. "Just don't stop fighting?"

That's his biggest worry. That I'll stop fighting it and let the mark take over again but I've been down that path in a lotta ways and don't want to again. So I will fight…until fighting endangers what's mine. If it becomes plain that Sam might be hurt or worse then I'll reevaluate but until then it's time to take his mind off the dark thoughts and doubts.

"You know if you tell anyone this that I will hurt your laptop, right?" I ask and hear a watery laugh that tells me he's coping even if his fingers are still clinging to my arm like he would as a kid if I'd been hurt. "Oh and you better clean up your room before Jody and Mrs. Tran get here tomorrow."

"Huh? What? Why?" it's always so cute to see Sam flustered like he gets when either of those women are around but both of them? Hell, I'm scared of the havoc they could wreck on this place and us…in addition to Kevin's ghost who still refuses to cross if he could.

"It's Christmas time and they seem to think all we'll do is hunt monsters or watch porn," I tell him with a shrug, hiding my face when he gives me several versions of his best bitch face. "Oh…and did I forget to mention when I was in the garage the other day I swatted a damn ugly flying monkey?"

"What?" Sam's at a loss which is so rare that it reminds me of when my brother still had his innocence of what Dad did. "A flying what? Where? Dean? Have you been into the eggnog this early?"

Oh, no, he is so not going near that crap. The last time he did my throat burned for a week so as I hold out a note that was attached to that flying rodent or monkey or whatever it was I vow to hide the eggnog or hide the booze. "Guess who's coming home?"

A very wise if grumpy old junkman once told me that family didn't end with blood and despite hating to admit it, Bobby was right. Sam and I might feel alone a lot of times but we do still have family and like Bobby also said family is supposed to make you miserable. Mine drives me to want to drink if I think too hard on it.

"Charlie, Jody, Mrs. Tran and Kevin's ghost?" Sam's hand was still on my sleeve as if not wanting to lose the contact and I won't force the issue. "Can we go hunt a monster…on the other side of the country?"

"Cute, little brother. Go start cleaning or hiding anything we don't want those two women finding while I actually see what's in the kitchen cause Jody says she's cooking and didn't appreciate my comment about flying monkey brains," I hear Sam snort but I also see his smile. I move my hand up to squeeze his neck like I used to when he was a kid and needing to know we were alright. "Sam?"

He's almost to the door when I speak. I see him look back at me curiously, warily and I hope for the day that my brother no longer needs that wariness. "Merry Christmas…bitch."

"Merry Christmas, jerk," he shoots back easily but I still see the moment when he relaxes fully as if the nicknames and bantering had been what he was waiting to see if I'd revert to since we haven't used those names for one another in years. Then I hear him humming Christmas songs and I know we're going to be good.

I will make certain we're good. I will make certain Sam's good and I will make certain this mark comes off my arm before it can hurt him and next year I'll give him the Christmas he's never had…in Lawrence. Assuming I survive this one with two overly hyper mother figures, a ghost of a prophet and a smart-ass hacker who's spent her last year living on Oz… "I need a drink."

The End